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HEIRS APPARENT 


PHILIP GIBBS 



By SIR PHILIP GIBBS 


THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD 
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 
WOUNDED SOULS 
PEOPLE OF DESTINY 
THE SOUL OF THE WAR 
THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME 
THE STRUGGLE IN FLANDERS 
THE WAY TO VICTORY, 2 Vols. 
NOW IT CAN BE TOLD 
MORE THAT MUST BE TOLD 



HEIRS APPARENT 


BY 

PHILIP GIBBS 


NEW 


YORK 


GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



COPYRIGHT, 1924, 

BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 


HEIRS APPARENT 
— B — 

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


MAR 18 *24 ^ 

©CU777579 V > : *■ 


HEIRS APPARENT 


% 






*?• 

























HEIRS APPARENT 


I 

J ULIAN PERRYAM was awakened at nine o'clock on a 
May morning in his bedroom in the Turl, off Broad 
Street, Oxford. He desired to sleep longer—hours longer— 
years longer—after a somewhat hectic night which had ended 
—how the deuce had it ended? He tried to think, as he 
flung one arm over the bedclothes and stared for a moment 
at the stream of sunlight pouring through his chintz window 
blind. . . . Clatworthy’s twenty-first birthday . . . Maiden¬ 
head . . . That fool Clatworthy had started being rowdy 
some time before eleven, playing monkey tricks in the style 
of Leslie Henson, as he was pleased to imagine. The waiters 
had threatened to chuck him out when he hung onto the 
chandelier and had the damned thing down with a most 
unholy smash. So childish, all that! Oxford was nothing 
but a kindergarten. He had certainly been unwell. Went 
giddy, all of a sudden. Clatworthy's poisonous cocktails 
had done that. He had gone behind the bar and mixed them 
himself. Audrey had become queer too. She had clung to 
his arm when he danced with her and said, “I’m feeling 
frightfully amused, Julian, but I’m not quite sure of my 
stance. Tell me if there are any bunkers coming. . . .” 
They had motored back from Maidenhead in somebody's 
Daimler. Then he had seen her home, or something. Yes, 
he remembered walking arm in arm with her up St. Giles to 
Somerville. Oh, Lord, yes! He had given her a leg up, 
so that she could get into a windows She had stood on his 
shoulder and scrambled in somehow. She had certainly got 
in all right. He had heard another smash almost as bad as 
Clatworthy and the chandelier, and a girl’s scream of fright, 

7 


8 Heirs Apparent 

and Audrey's squeals of laughter. After that? How had 
he got in? He had been progged at the corner of Carfax. 
‘‘Your name please!” “Julian Perryam—spelt with a y.” 
He was rather proud of that. “Spelt with a y.” He had 
kept quite cool. “College?” “Balliol, of course.” That 
“of course” was pretty good too. Nothing like being a bit 
haughty with such silly swine. How childish it all was! 
Oxford “men” and treated like naughty schoolboys. He 
was fed up with the whole institution. Utter waste of time. 
Stultifying to the intellect. 

“Oh, shut up, for God's sake!” 

It was that licensed ass Prichard singing as he shaved, as 
usual. He couldn’t let a fellow sleep. He was one of those 
aggressively active and healthy persons who like getting up 
early—positively liked it!—and made things intolerable for 
any man who shared rooms with him. 

“‘If you're waking, call we early , 

Call me early, mother dear. . . .* 

“Oh, Hell, I've lost my stud!” 

“Shut up!" shouted Julian Perryam, raising himself in bed 
slightly so that his voice should carry through the door. 

“‘For I’m to be Queen of the May, mother. 

For Fm to be Queen of the May!” 


“Shut up!” 

So far from shutting up, Stokes Prichard opened Julian's 
door and stood there brushing his ridiculously golden hair 
with silver-backed brushes, in a vigorous athletic style. 

“Good morning, darling! Plad a good night, little one? 
Pure and pleasant dreams ? 

“ ‘ There's a woman like a dewdrop, she’s so purer than the purest, 
And her heart’s the noblest, yes, and her sure faith’s the surest: 
And her eyes are dark and humid like the depth on depth of 
lustre .../■* 

. . . Can you lend me a back stud, duckie? My last, I fear, 
has rolled down to the uttermost pits.” 


Heirs Apparent 9 

“Help yourself,” said Julian sulkily. “Then be good 
enough to clear out and let me sleep, there’s a good chap.” 

“Oh, no, dear heart. Not sleep again. 

To sleep! perchance to dream; ay, there’s the rub; 

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come 
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil 
Must give us pause / . . . 

. . . Which drawer, darling?” 

“Left hand side, top,” said Julian. 

Stokes Prichard rummaged in it, ruthless with regard to 
an admirable assortment of silk ties, and produced a stud. 

“A noble lad i’ faith. ’Twill serve my purpose well. . . . 
And by the bye, Perryam, my old college chum and play¬ 
mate of my innocent youth, there’s a letter for you from 
old Scrutton. I recognise his meticulous and sinister hand. 
I fear it conveys bad tidings to you. This is the fourth 
time you’ve been progged in the last fortnight. I have a 
dreadful foreboding that this time you’ll be sent down with¬ 
out the option of a fine. ( Hodie tibi, eras mihi / which, as 
you doubtless do not understand the ancient tongue, means 
'Your turn to-day, mine to-morrow,’ O Brutus!” 

Julian Perryam leaned higher on one elbow and lit a 
cigarette. 

“I expect you’re right,” he answered coldly, “but as it hap¬ 
pens I’m going to save them the trouble. I’m sending my¬ 
self down. To-day.” 

Stokes Prichard permitted himself a look of surprise and 
stopped brushing his hair. 

“Not really?” 

“Yes. I’m fed up with Oxford. There’s nothing in it— 
for me. I’m not one of you ruddy athletes, all brawn and no 
brains. And I’ve no further interest in the life and letters 
of Erasmus, the economic conditions of England at the time 
of the Black Death, and the political issues of the Thirty 
Years’ War. It’s a bit stale after our own late little strife. 
Also I’m not really amused by dances at the Masonic, after¬ 
noon tea at the Clarendon, and insincere debates at the 


10 Heirs Apparent 

Union by a clique of conceited pups. Anyhow I’m chuck¬ 
ing it.” 

“What will your people say ?” 

Julian shrugged his shoulders in his pink silk pyjamas. 

“Why should they say anything?” 

Stokes Prichard laughed in his sunny way and did a little 
imaginary dumbell exercise, counting as he raised and low¬ 
ered his arms. 

“Far be it from me to dissuade my young friend (one 
two, one two). I certainly agree with a man being master 
of his own destiny (three four, three four, and touch the 
tips of your toes). All the same, little one, it seems a pity 
to go down at the beginning of Summer term when Oxford 
is really brightening up. Of course there is that letter from 
Scrutton. Don’t you think you’d better read it?” 

“Sling it over,” said Perryam. 

Prichard condescended to bring the letter, and Perryam 
tore open the envelope and glanced at the lines inside. 

“Yes. It looks like a row all right. Well, they shan’t put 
their pomposity over me. I shall motor up to town this 
afternoon.” 

Stokes Prichard read the note and whistled softly. 

“Oh, a very stern little summons! Most unfriendly. 
Well, give my love to London, old dear. I’ll join you there 
soon. My last term you know. After that—Life! Also, 
alas, a little labour. I shall have to earn my own living, and 
to dig I am unable, to beg I am ashamed. A tragic prospect 
for a young English gentleman of poor but honest parents. 
Still there’s always Love! . . . 

“ ‘She whom I love is hard to catch and conquer, 

Hard, hut oh, the glory of the winning were she won!* . . 

He retired into his own room and presently departed to 
the Anglo-American club, hot because he loved Americans 
particularly but because he liked big breakfasts and found 
the best assortment of early morning food in that institution. 

Julian Perryam slept again. 


II 


H E met Audrey Nye at Fuller’s in the Cornmarket, 
where he proposed to have a light lunch. One could 
have excellent salmon mayonnaise and ice-cream sodas. 
Audrey looked a little pale under her Tudor cap, but other¬ 
wise cheerful. 

“Hullo!” she greeted him. “How do you feel this morn¬ 
ing ? Shall we share a table ?” 

“Here’s one,” said Julian. “Shall I throw your gown over 
the peg ?” 

Audrey sat down and regarded the menu card. 

“Light food for me this morning,” she remarked. “Very 
light food.” 

She waved the menu at two Somerville girls who came in. 
They laughed at her as though aware of some good jest, and 
took a table by the window. 

“Any news ?” asked Julian casually. 

“Quite a lot,” answered Audrey. She gave a queer little 
catch in her breath and then said, “I’ve been sent down 1” 
Julian glanced at her over the menu card and raised his 
eyebrows. 

“Is that so? About last night?” 

“Yes. Rotten bad luck. When I went through the window 
—you remember?—I stepped on Beatrice Tuck’s dressing- 
table. You know what sort of a thing she is, and what sort 
of a dressing-table she would have. Absolutely laden with 
scent bottles, powder pots, lip salves, face creams, hair 
washes. They all went down like an avalanche—enough to 
waken the dead! Then as I jumped I trod on Beatrice 
Tuck’s face. Needless to say I didn’t do it deliberately. 
Any decent girl would understand that. But the Tuck crea¬ 
ture says I damaged her nose—such a nose too! and gave the 
whole game away to the Principal! Treachery, I call it. 
However, there it is. I’m sent down.” 

11 


12 Heirs Apparent 

“Bad luck,” said Julian. “What are you going to eat?” 

They chose salmon mayonnaise. They nearly always did. 
Towards the end of the meal Audrey suggested that Julian 
should pay for her lunch, if he didn’t mind. She had had 
to pay up some outstanding debts, and had just enough in 
her purse to get back to her father’s vicarage at Hartland. 

“Near Guildford,” said Julian. “I forgot your governor 
was vicar there. My people are living at Gorse Hill, which 
is not far away. I’ll motor you back if you like.” 

“If Hike!” 

Audrey’s brown eyes lighted up and then became overcast 
with the shadow of a doubt. 

“How can you ? At the beginning of the term ?” 

“That’s easy,” said Julian. “I’m going down too, this 
afternoon.” 

“What, you too? Sent down? No!” 

She gave a little gasp. 

“Not exactly,” said Julian. “I’m sending myself down, 
though it amounts to the same thing. As a great scholar 
remarked this morning, with a slight inaccuracy of quota¬ 
tion, ‘Hodie tibi , eras mihi —your turn to-day, mine to¬ 
morrow.’ ” 

“Thanks,” said Audrey, “I understood first time.” 

After this assertion of scholarship she looked rather wor¬ 
ried and glanced anxiously at Julian. 

“I hope our little binge last night didn’t put the lid on 
your career? It was my fault mostly.” 

“Not at all,” said Julian. “It was Clatworthy who lured 
us into sin. Anyhow he paid for the party, and it must have 
been pretty expensive.” 

“Very,” answered Audrey. “That chandelier cost him 
twenty pounds. Last night he thought it was worth it—the 
jolly old smash!” 

She gave a little squeal of laughter at the reminiscence 
and then asked, “What about your career, Julian? I should 
be sorry if I thought I’d helped to blast it.” 

Julian reassured her. 

“On the contrary. So far from blasting it, or putting the 
lid on, you’ve helped to take the lid off. I’m sick of wasting 


Heirs Apparent 13 

time in this City of Beautiful Nonsense. Oxford! Oh, 
Lord ! . . . I think I’ll have a look at real life, after a bit.” 

“You won’t like it,” said Audrey, rather grimly. 

Julian lifted his eyebrows. It was a trick of his to show 
mild surprise, which was never more than he permitted him¬ 
self in any crisis or at any statement. Then a faint smile of 
amusement softened the line of his lips. 

“You think it’s as bad as that? Oh, well, I daresay you’re 
right! May as well have a dash at it though. What time 
are you starting this afternoon ?” 

Audrey was ready to start at any time. She was taking 
no more than a hand bag. All her things were being sent 
after her. 

“Make it two-fifteen,” said Julian. “Outside the Clarry. 
That’s where I stable my car.” 

Audrey agreed upon the time and cheered herself up—she 
needed cheering a little—by a valiant attempt at optimism. 

“Well, anyhow it’s a nice day for a funeral, and the coun¬ 
try’s looking lovely!” 


Ill 


E VERYTHING went according to programme as far as 
the outskirts of Nuneham Courtenay. Julian had in¬ 
structed the landlord of his rooms to auction a few bits of 
furniture and pay himself what was due for the lodgings out 
of the proceeds. There would be a bit over, which he could 
keep. Clatworthy looked in, very merry and bright because 
there had not been a whisper about the affair last night as 
far as he was concerned. He had been fined, of course, for 
getting into college after midnight. He still maintained that 
the twenty pounds he had had to pay for the chandelier was 
not too much for a priceless thrill. 

“It fell down like the Crystal Palace, old man! I was 
buried in glittering gobbets of early Victorian glass. And 
the surprise of the thing! When I swung from it gracefully 
like an anthropoid ape in his native haunts, I had a sense of 
happy certainty that was suddenly shattered by that colossal 
crash!” 

Clatworthy was a little fellow who made an excellent cox, 
and he had a gift of facial expression which made him very 
popular in hall, where he set the whole table laughing by 
his imitations of Queen Victoria, Nelson, old Scrutton, and 
various animals, including the favourite performance of a 
monkey scratching himself. He was the Honourable John 
Clatworthy, but that didn’t matter. 

Julian was rather severe with him. 

“Of course, you behaved as usual like a gibbering idiot. 
Those cocktails of yours might have poisoned the whole 
crowd of us.” 

“My dear fellow, they’re marvellous! I learned them 
from my eldest brother, who learned them from a fellow at 
G. H. Q. in the late unmentionable War.” 

He was genuinely sorry that Julian was going down. 
However as it was his own last term, they might run up 
against each other in Town. 


14 


Heirs Apparent 15 

“Look me up in South Audley Street, old man. It might 
save me from suicide. My governor is the gloomiest old 
beaver that ever sat in the House of Lords. Thinks the 
country is doomed unless it destroys socialism root and 
branch and puts a bounty on beet-root sugar.” 

After his farewell Julian flung a few things into a kit-bag 
—razor, hair brushes, his favourite ties, pyjamas, socks, and 
photographs of girls at Somerville, Lady Margaret’s and 
Cherwell Edge—not that he cared for them, but it was 
hardly the thing to leave them behind. He gave a glance or 
two round the room and then out of the window from which 
he could see the tower of Balliol and the rookery in the high 
trees above the quad. 

“Well, that’s finished!” he said aloud, and for a moment 
there was a thoughtful look in his eyes and a half regretful 
smile. That was all he allowed to the sentiment of the mo¬ 
ment. He had had a good time, after all. Probably he 
would look back to Oxford as the most amusing period of 
his life. He had made some friends, written some rather 
decent verse in the Isis, had a considerable amount of good 
fun. But he had become restless lately, with a fed-up feel¬ 
ing, peeved with everything and everybody. It had led him 
to play the fool overmuch, through sheer boredom. He had 
been getting damnably into debt, drinking too many cock¬ 
tails, rotting himself up with the rowdy set. Well . . . 

He gave a fiver to the college porter, and then bumped up 
against Stokes Prichard and two other fellows at the corner 
of Carfax. They were carrying golf clubs and wheeling 
bicycles. 

“Hullo! Stealing away like a thief in the night ?” 

Prichard gripped Julian’s arm and said, “See you in town 
one day, old son,” and refrained from breaking into verse. 

Julian was glad to get away without a fuss. Audrey was 
waiting outside the Clarendon, no longer in a Tudor cap but 
with a small blue hat tied round her chin with a veil. 

“Up to time, you see,” she remarked cheerfully. 

Julian nodded and fetched out his car. It was a four¬ 
seater Metallurgique which his father had given him last 
birthday. He had smashed it up in the crossroads at Wood- 


16 Heirs Apparent 

stock and had all but broken his neck in it, to say nothing 
of Clatworthy’s vertebrae, on a wild drive back after doing 
a theatre in Town. However it seemed as good as new now, 
and if there was one thing on earth he could do, it was drive 
a car. 

“Sit behind like a lady, or next to the driver?” he asked 
Audrey. ' 

She chose to sit next to him after throwing her hand bag 
onto the seat behind. 

“We ought to do it in three hours easy,” said Julian, put¬ 
ting the clutch in. 

They swung round by Carfax, narrowly escaping a fellow 
on an “Indian,” and made for the Henley Road. The Metal- 
lurgique was pulling fairly well. A bit cold perhaps. Julian 
listened to the beat of his engine. He would show Audrey 
a bit of speed presently. 

She sat very quiet until they were in the outskirts of Ox¬ 
ford. Then she squirmed round in her seat for a last look 
at its spires and towers and said, “Good-bye, Oxford!” 

“Feeling mushy about it?” asked Julian. 

“Just a bit. I’ve had a glorious time. The best ever!” 

She blew her nose with what Julian thought was unneces¬ 
sary vigour. 

He showed her a bit of speed on the road to Nuneham 
Courtenay. But not as much as he wanted. The Metal- 
lurgique was not pulling so well as he hoped. There was a 
queer kind of rattle in the engine. It was that child Clat- 
worthy’s doing. He had lent it to him a night or two ago 
for a party up at Boar’s Hill. He had probably made it 
jump ditches or something. Treated it like a kangaroo or a 
tank! 

“Curse!” 

“What’s the matter?” asked Audrey. 

Julian didn’t answer for a couple of minutes. Then the 
Metallurgique made strange noises under the bonnet, rat¬ 
tled like a tin can tied to a dog’s tail, mis-fired terribly, and 
presently stopped dead. 

“Carburettor’s choked probably,” said Audrey helpfully. 

Julian did not respond to this theory. He got out in his 


Heirs Apparent 17 

leisurely style and had a look at the engine. Then he 
laughed, in a vexed way. 

‘‘Looks serious to me. That jester Clatworthy! The 
bearings have gone to blazes, I’m afraid. He must have run 
it without oil or some fool’s trick like that.” 

Audrey came and peered at the engine. 

“ ’Fraid I can’t advise!” 

There was a garage near by, in a big shed. Julian strode 
over to it, and beckoned a fellow in overalls busy with a dis¬ 
integrated Ford. 

“You might take a look at this sewing machine,” said 
Julian, in his most casual voice. “It’s developed a little 
heart trouble.” 

The man took a look—a long look—at it, and then grunted. 

“Well, you won’t get much further with it to-day! Why, 
the bearings are all gone! Some one’s been treating it 
rough, I should say. Running it hard without a drop of 
oil. Fair cruelty!” 

“Yes,” said Julian. “That’s what I thought.” He cursed 
Clatworthy again. 

“You’ll have to leave it with me,” said the man. 

“How long?” 

The man thrust his hair back with an oily hand. 

“Can’t say, I’m sure. About a fortnight. Maybe longer. 
It’s a job.” 

“A fortnight!” cried Audrey. 

“That’s that,” remarked Julian, and he lit a cigarette. 

“What’s to be done ?” asked Audrey. “Is there any chance 
of a train from this place? I hate the idea of tramping back 
to Oxford and getting one there. Such an anti-climax!” 

“Yes,” said Julian. “I’m always against turning back.” 

It was a quarter to three, and an afternoon in May. The 
sky was as blue as the sea at Capri, except where white 
clouds floated lazily like sleeping swans. The sun was 
bright, but not too hot on the road to Nuneham Courtenay. 
It bronzed the thatched roofs of the cottages, and played 
among the fruit trees in the gardens, laden with white blos¬ 
soms. A pleasant breeze stirred the wallflowers and phlox 
in front of the cottage by which Julian stood smoking. 


18 Heirs Apparent 

There was a nice smell about. Some one had been cutting 
grass near by. A peacock on the stone gate post outside a 
private park spread its tail in the sun with lazy vanity. Bees 
were humming, birds singing. 

“I hate trains on a day like this,” said Julian. Those 
third class carriages with hot country girls, the usual sailor, 
the baby with chocolate, the parson in the corner with the 
Morning Post. Oh, Lord! . . . Why not walk to London?” 

Audrey received the idea as an inspiration. 

'‘Noble thought, Julian! Why not, indeed ?” 

“Easy walking,” said Julian. “No record-making. A 
pleasant amble. Henley to-night, if we feel like it, Maiden¬ 
head to-morrow, stop when we’re tired.” 

“Perfectly glorious!” cried Audrey, “and the most roman¬ 
tic way of leaving Oxford after being sent down.” 

“Romantic ? Oh, don’t let’s worry about that. Shoes any 
good ?” 

Audrey studied her brown shoes and looked at one sole 
backwards. 

“Stout as clogs. My old golf shoes.” 

“Well, what about kit? No fun if we have to carry much. 
A razor for me, and a pair of pyjamas.” 

“Pyjamas and a tooth brush for little me.” 

They took rather more than that but not much. After 
rummaging in their bags they made a common dump in Ju¬ 
lian’s knapsack. He rolled Audrey’s pyjamas—blue silk— 
round his own, which were pink, and put her slippers, tooth 
brush, and a silver-backed hair brush and comb with his 
razor and other small essentials, in the middle of the bundle. 

The garage man watched their arrangements with amaze¬ 
ment. 

“You two ain’t going to walk to London? It’s sixty miles 
and more! I wouldn’t do it for gold.” 

“We’re doing it for fun,” said Audrey. “And it’s not to 
London but to Surrey. Adventure ! Nature! England in 
May-time!” 

“There’s a very good train from Oxford,” said the man. 

“We dislike trains,” said Julian. 


Heirs Apparent 19 

He handed the man his card and desired word when the 
Metallurgique was restored in health. 

The oily man laughed good-naturedly. 

“You’ll be damn tired before you get into Surrey. The 
roads seem a long sight shorter in a car. If you took my 
advice—” 

“That’s all right,” said Julian, “and here’s something for 
your trouble in advance.” 

He gave the man a ten shilling note and then turned to 
Audrey. 

“Ready to push off ?” 

“Why not?” 

They walked down to the village of Nuneham Courtenay, 
and Audrey stopped at a small shop to buy some acid tablets. 

“Good as thirst quenchers,” she remarked. 

Julian decided that some of the cottages belonged to the 
period of Charles II. 

Audrey had left her motor veil behind in the car, and 
pressed her little blue hat closer over her brown hair. She 
walked with an easy swinging stride which Julian had re¬ 
marked on the golf links. She also held her head high and 
had a smile about her lips. She wore a tight-fitting “jumper” 
of pale blue and a short brown skirt. Julian found nothing 
wrong with her appearance likely to discredit him in the 
face of the sun. He walked without a hat and with his 
knapsack slung over one shoulder. An old lady coming out 
of one of the cottages stopped to stare after them as they 
passed, walking briskly a yard apart, and her wrinkled old 
face smiled as though she liked the look of them. Youth 
and May-time! A good sight for old eyes, after the mas¬ 
sacre of English boyhood. 


IV 


HEY did not talk very much while they walked. 



A Audrey hummed a little syncopated tune now and then, 
with an acid tablet in her left cheek. Julian, who had an 
eye for colour, noted without remark the symphony of green 
and gold and silver along the way. The young beech trees 
were pale and bright against the tangled branches of oak 
trees not yet clothed in leaf. The hawthorne hedges were a 
flaming green, and here and there a chestnut tree was in 
full foliage, each leaf clean and sparkling after a night’s 
rain. The green of young larches was shrill like the reed 
notes in an orchestra. Some of the fields were silvered with 
daisies, and others splashed with the gold of celandines and 
dandelions. In wayside orchards twisted fruit trees, white¬ 
washed up to their branches, were smothered with pink blos¬ 
som, and the breeze strewed some of their petals over the 
pathways like confetti outside St. Peter’s, Eaton Square, on 
a marriage morning. 

“Give me England in May-time,” said Audrey. 

“I’ve seen worse places,” said Julian. “Probably we’ll 
get snow before the journey’s end, or grey skies and arctic 
winds.” 

“Pessimist! ‘Gather the rosebuds while ye may!’ ” 
laughed Audrey. 

She gathered a daisy instead and put its stalk between 
her teeth with the flower dangling from her lips. Presently 
she took off her blue hat and swung it from one of its rib¬ 
bons as she walked. The wind played with a few loose 
curls of her brown hair but could do nothing with its close 
coils. 

“I don’t feel a bit as if I’d disgraced myself,” she said, a 
mile or two farther on. 

“I shouldn’t worry about that,” said Julian. “It depends 
entirely on your sense of humour.” 


20 


Heirs Apparent 21 

‘‘Oh, I’ve heaps of that. But one has to pay for it. Prob¬ 
ably we’ll have to pay for this walk. The Old People make 
such a fuss about things.” 

“That’s true,” said Julian. “They never understand.” 

“Queer, isn’t it?” 

Audrey laughed at the queerness of the Old People. 

“They seem to forget their own youth. Utterly refuse to 
see things from our point of view, and won’t be taught even 
by the most patient explanations.” 

“The obstinacy of intolerance,” said Julian. 

Audrey harked back to the belief that there would be an 
unholy row because she had been sent down. 

“As if it were my fault that Beatrice Tuck’s ridiculous 
nose got in the way of my fairy footstep!” 

Julian laughed in his quiet way. 

“Miss Tuck’s obtrusive nose was only one link in a chain 
of connected facts, beginning with Clatworthy’s party.” 

“Anyhow this is good,” said Audrey, blushing a little at 
the mention of Clatworthy, who was supposed to be her most 
ardent cavalier. 

“It’s good,” she said again ecstatically, “this white road, 
this sky, the smell of things.” 

She recited a verse or two as she swung into a longer 
stride 

“‘Now the joys of the road are chiefly these: 

A crimson touch on the hard wood trees 

A vagrant's morning wide and blue 

In early fall, when the wind walks, too; 

A shadowy highway cool and brown 

Alluring up and enticing down, 

From rippled water to dappled swamp 

From purple glory to scarlet pomp; 

The outward eye, the quiet will, 

And the striding heart from hill to hill'” 

“Tell me when you feel like tea,” said Julian. 

She felt like tea in the village of Dorchester, near Benson, 


22 Heirs Apparent 

with its little old Tudor and Stuart houses, and its look of 
having slept in history since a Charles passed that way to 
set up his court in Oxford in the time of Revolution. 

They went into a quiet inn which smelt of polished ma¬ 
hogany, old plaster, and faded rose leaves. There was a 
tea-garden behind, and they chose that instead of the parlour 
with closed windows. 

Some people were there already—two obvious .Americans 
belonging to a Studebaker they had seen outside, and a thin 
old lady with a middle-aged daughter and an over-fed span¬ 
iel. They didn’t matter. Audrey passed them without a 
glance and found a table for two at the end of a pergola of 
rambler roses—not yet in flower. It was close to a bed of 
white alison and forget-me-nots, and shielded from wind in 
an arbour of its own filled with the afternoon sun. There 
was a croquet lawn beyond, as smooth as velvet. 

Audrey’s shoes were white with dust and her face had 
been touched by the sun and breeze. She drank four cups 
of tea and ate three chocolate eclairs, and then with a deep 
sigh of content lit one of Julian’s cigarettes and shifted to a 
deck chair in which she lay back with her eyes closed and a 
flickering smile about her lips. Julian noticed that she had 
rather humorous lips, and a straight little nose with two 
freckles on the bridge. Rather a good-looking kid, alto¬ 
gether. 

“Life’s pretty good in spots,” said Audrey presently. 
“This is one of the spots, Julian.” 

He agreed. There was nothing much wrong with it. 

“A pity,” said Audrey, “we can’t make this walk last for 
weeks and months and years. Just walking on through little 
old villages, with restful moments in gardens like this.” 

Julian thought over the idea with a faintly satirical smile. 

“The weather wouldn’t hold out. And we should get 
bored with each other.” 

“Not me,” said Audrey generously. 

“After the first year or two our clothes would begin to fall 
off. Somehow or other we should have to replace them for 
decency’s sake.” 

“Why ?” asked Audrey blandly. 


Heirs Apparent 23 

‘‘Well, if not for that, for warmth’s sake. That would 
mean earning money somehow and interrupting the walk.” 

“In any decent scheme of society—” said Audrey. 

“In fact,” added Julian, as the brutal truth-teller, “we 
couldn’t afford the game for more than a week. I’ve five 
quid in my pocket at the most, and I understand you haven’t 
a bean ?” 

“I never have,” said Audrey. “It’s hellish.” 

They were silent after that for some time. Audrey shut 
her eyes and seemed to sleep, but presently she opened them 
and laughed. 

“You’re not really romantic, Julian, in spite of writing 
morbid verse for the Isis. You think things out and don’t 
let your imagination catch fire. At that binge last night you 
were as cold as ice.” 

“Rather bored,” said Julian. “I hate repetitions.” 

“I think you’re groping towards high ideals,” said Audrey. 
“Trying to find an answer to the little old riddle of life. 
Tell me.” 

He looked down at her with a guarded expression in his 
grey eyes. 

“If you mean I haven’t a notion what to make of things, 
you’re right. Have any of us ? Have you ?” 

“Not much,” said Audrey. “One ought to get such a lot 
out of life. I’m greedy! But it’s a muddled business. Too 
many restrictions. ‘You mustn’t do this!’ ‘You mustn’t do 
that!’ ‘Keep off the grass !’ An awful nuisance.” 

“I know,” agreed Julian. “That’s why I’ve cut Oxford. 
Partly. It’s a cramping institution designed to turn out 
character in certain moulds.” 

Audrey sniggered. 

“It hasn’t moulded me! You men conform more easily, I 
find.” 

“Perhaps,” said Julian. “Our ideas are shaped on the 
conventional lines of English life a hundred years ago. Pre¬ 
historic now.” 

Audrey gaped a little. 

“How do you mean, Julian, dear?” 

“Caste ideas,” said Julian, “when the caste has broken 


24 Heirs Apparent 

down, more or less. Learning for leisured gentlemen with 
comfortable estates and ready-made professions, when the 
late unmentionable war and other things have destroyed 
their privileges. It seems to me we’re pretending things are 
the same when they’re all different. Other things have come 
along or are coming.” 

“What things, dear child ?” 

“The mass mind. Labour. All sorts of damn things 
which spoil our kind of life.” 

Julian smiled through his cigarette smoke. 

“Of course I’m talking rot. Anyhow Oxford’s a back¬ 
water, out of the tide of life.” 

“Gloomy Dean!” said Audrey. “I’m not worrying about 
the state of the world. It’s very messy! It’s the personal 
side of things that afflicts my sensitive young soul at the 
moment. Parental prohibitions. Large desires and small 
means. Poverty. Above all, poverty!” 

“It’s not nice, I suppose,” said Julian. 

“It’s horrid. I happen to know! My father wallows in it. 
A country parson with four kids! He’s had to give up 
’baccy and the more expensive kind of books to provide me 
with a college education. Imagine his sense of tragedy when 
I tell him I’ve been sent down. Another hope blasted! An¬ 
other little maid gone to the devil instead of going to a High 
School as assistant mistress!” 

“What about getting on?” asked Julian. 

“Forty winks first.” 

She curled herself up in the deck chair and slept with her 
face in the sun. Julian smoked another cigarette and thought 
out the end of a verse he was writing. 

Audrey was just waking up with a yawn when the old 
lady and the middle-aged daughter and the over-fed spaniel, 
who had been taking tea at the other end of the pergola, 
appeared down the garden path. 

The middle-aged lady, dressed in a short tweed skirt with 
jacket to match, stopped in front of Audrey. Julian no¬ 
ticed that she had short hair cut like a boy’s and rather 
watery eyes which did not look straight at the object of vi¬ 
sion but wandered uneasily. 


Heirs Apparent 25 

“Surely,” she said, with an air of delight, “this is Miss 
Nye of Hartland?” 

Audrey sat up without dignity and with a somewhat hos¬ 
tile expression. 

“How do you do, Miss Raven. Been having tea ?” 

“Yes. Such a delightful tea! . . . Mother, this is Audrey 
Nye, our dear Vicar’s daughter.” 

The old lady beamed. 

“What a pleasant coincidence! We are motoring down to 
see my grand-niece, Nancy Burbridge. And you are taking 
a little jaunt this afternoon, as a respite from your studies, 
no doubt?” 

“Yes,” said Audrey. “Just a little respite!” 

She threw a laughing glance at Julian which was inter¬ 
cepted by Miss Raven. 

“Your brother, I suppose?” she asked. “Mr. Frank, is it 
not?” 

“Not a bit like Frank,” said Audrey. “Mr. Julian Per- 
ryam. . . . Mrs. Raven, Julian. Miss Raven. From Hart- 
land.” 

Julian acknowledged the introduction. 

“Nice day,” he said politely. 

“Can we give you a lift back to Oxford?” asked Miss 
Raven. “Unless of course you have your own car ? But of 
course you have! How silly of me!” 

She gave a shrill, nervous laugh, and her vision wandered 
between Julian and Audrey. 

“I had a car once,” said Julian. “But it’s broken down. 
We’ve decided to walk.” 

“Oh, no! You must let us give you a lift. Such a pleas¬ 
ure ! And such a long walk!” 

“As a matter of fact,” said Julian curtly, “we’re walking 
in the other direction. Excellent walking weather, don’t you 
think?” 

Miss Raven agreed that it was wonderful walking weather. 
But she did not quite understand—it was foolish of her!— 
how they could be walking away from Oxford. Would 
it not be rather difficult to get back? Such a long way 
already! 


26 


Heirs Apparent 

“That's all right," said Julian. “We’re walking back to 
Surrey. Taking it leisurely, you know." 

Miss Raven did not hide her surprise in which there was 
a note of dismay, 

“Oh, surely not! My dear Miss Nye—" 

“And as it’s quite a way," said Audrey hastily, “we’d bet¬ 
ter be starting off again. Good afternoon, Mrs. Raven. 
Good afternoon, Miss Raven. Come along, Julian!" 

She gave them an affable, smiling nod, and swinging her 
blue hat marched up the pergola followed by Julian, after 
his bow to the two ladies. 

“A bit too abrupt, weren’t you?" he asked, after he had 
paid his bill and joined Audrey in the porch. 

Audrey was amused but slightly flushed. 

“And you were a bit too candid," she answered. “That 
woman, Alice Raven, has raised more scandals in Surrey 
than you can find on a Sunday morning in the News of the 
World . She’s a ferret." 

“Looks like it rather," said Julian. “I don’t like the way 
she wears her hair." 

“Let’s forget her,” said Audrey. “What a topping eve¬ 
ning for a walk! See those long shadows across the road, 
and the crimson feathers in the sky? I’m good for twelve 
miles before the stars come out.” 


V 


T HEY walked at a good swinging pace while the shad¬ 
ows grew longer and the rich gold of the sunlight 
paled a little, until the low hills lost their sharpness of out¬ 
line and were like purple clouds lying above the tawny earth 
of ploughed fields and the emerald green of pasture land. 
Presently the woods darkened below and their feathery tops 
caught the fire of the setting sun, and the sky above them 
was of turquoise blue with rose-flushed clouds. In the west 
was a great grey wing with flame-tipped plumage. Dark 
shadows crept into old barns. There was a jabber of gossip 
before bed-time in the rookery of a rectory garden. Farm 
carts crawled down the rutty lanes with tired horses, and 
country lads called good evening to Julian and Audrey. 
Birds twittered in the darkening hedges, and flowers in cot¬ 
tage gardens lost their colour but gave out a new richness of 
scent as the evening dew moistened them. Later a crescent 
moon rose like a silver scimitar in a sky still blue but no 
longer rose-flushed, and a star twinkled in the east. The 
earth was good to smell, and somewhere in the fields behind 
a farmstead a wood fire was burning, and its bluish smoke 
was wafted to the nostrils of the girl, who called to Julian to 
sniff the sharp, thin smell of it. 

“Burning wood! It’s the odour of romance, the aroma of 
life’s first adventures. Why does it always remind me of 
that heroic vagabond, Richard Cceur de Lion ?” 

“Association of ideas,” said Julian. “I expect he roasted 
a deer by a wood fire, or you think he did.” 

Darkness came, but luminous. The road was white be¬ 
neath their feet and a little mist crept about them, an ex¬ 
halation from the warm earth. 

Suddenly, beyond Nettlebed, Audrey took hold of Julian’s 
hand and said, “Stop! . . . Listen!” 

It was at a gate leading to a farmstead with big old barns. 
27 


28 Heirs Apparent 

By the side of the gate was a tall hedge of hawthorn in 
which a bird was singing. 

It was a nightingale warbling to its mate with a few deep, 
rich, chuckling notes before pouring out its love in passion¬ 
ate song. Audrey’s footsteps and her words alarmed it and 
it stayed quite quiet for a minute while the boy and girl 
stood there listening. Then it made a few little gurglings of 
liquid sound and suddenly gave out a high trill and began a 
Caprice, very blithe and quick in change of note and tone, as 
though striving for the perfect expression of its ecstasy of 
love. 

“Pretty good,” said Julian. “Some bird!” 

Under such carefully unsentimental words he masked his 
own wonder at this little voice of beauty which gave him a 
thrill as though something stirred hidden things in his own 
nature. He could feel Audrey’s hand quiver as she held his 
wrist. She lifted her face up to the bush and spoke to the 
now silent bird. 

“Hark! ah, the Nightingale! 

The tawny-throated! 

Hark from that moonlit cedar what a burst! 

What triumph! hark—what pain! . . .” 

“You’re as bad as Stokes Prichard,” said Julian. “Better 
be walking on. It’s still a fair step to Henley.” 

“Bother Henley!” cried Audrey. “Why not sleep out in 
the fields and forget the haunts of men and all unpleasant¬ 
ness ?” 

Julian considered the idea for a moment. Certainly it 
would be rather amusing, but there was a limit even to the 
simple life and the open road. It would certainly get ex¬ 
tremely cold, and anyhow he was hungry. A good inn, with 
steak and onions, would be more attractive than the sheltered 
side of a haystack. So he protested to Audrey. Besides— 
he did not enlarge on that “besides,” even in his own mind, 
but subconsciously there was a touch of caution in his 
character, some old instinct of self-defence and obedience 
to the law of convention which as a rule he derided like 
most of his friends. Audrey was an amusing kid and per- 


Heirs Apparent 29 

fectly straight and all that, and there was nothing whatever 
between them, but all the same one couldn’t take too many 
liberties with the usual scheme of things. In any case, Clat- 
worthy wouldn’t like it. 

“Me for Henley,” he said. “And the biggest meal they 
can give us at the White Hart.” 

“Materialist,” said Audrey. “Unadventurous and un¬ 
romantic soul! How nice to see the dawn break and wash 
one’s face in the running brook, and comb one’s hair in the 
morning sun.” 

“I know that English dawn,” said Julian. “Freezes the 
very marrow in one’s bones.” 

“Doubtless you’re right,” said Audrey graciously. “You’re 
a wise young man with an old head on young shoulders. But 
I shall miss a good adventure. I’m in a primitive mood to¬ 
night. I’m a child of nature. I want to lie on the earth 
and embrace the sky. I want to run through dark woods 
and go to sleep among the fairies. I want to play hide-and- 
seek with moonbeams. . . . But on the other hand, I admit 
the lure of steak and onions. How many miles to Henley, 
did you say?” 

It was eight miles still, and Audrey, though a golf-playing 
girl and half back at hockey, was the worse for wear when 
she and Julian walked at last into the White Hart Hotel. 
She limped a little and announced that she had “strained her 
fetlock.” 

The young woman in the office was doubtful whether she 
had two rooms. “Any luggage?” she asked, with what 
Julian considered to be unnecessary suspicion of his trans¬ 
parent honesty. 

“A tooth brush between us,” he said in his somewhat 
arrogant way. “We don’t mind paying in advance, if that 
would please you.” 

The young woman softened, because of his look of mas¬ 
tery, or perhaps because of his grey eyes and the curve of 
his upper lip. Other young women had served him gladly 
because of his youthful arrogance. 

“That’s all right,” she said. “Brother and sister, I sup¬ 
pose ?” 


30 Heirs Apparent 

“No,” said Julian. “Uncle and niece.” 

He signed the book, and passed it to Audrey who scrawled 
her name across the page in her big, bold hand. 

“Now for a wash,” said Audrey, “and a tremenjous meal!” 

They could not get steak and onions, which was a real 
blow. It was too late for hot food and they sat down to 
cold ham and pickles. 

“What about a teeny weeny cocktail ?” asked Audrey. “It 
would put the right touch to the end of a perfect day.” 

“It’s a bad habit for young ladies,” said Julian, but he 
yielded. 

Over the meal they talked of Oxford friends like two old 
people who had left that life far behind. They were already 
beginning to feel the charm of its tradition. 

“Of course, I’m glad to have been up at Balliol,” said 
Julian. “It’s a good thing to have behind one.” 

“What’s your programme now?” asked Audrey. “How 
are you going to jab at life?” 

“Oh, I shan’t be in too much of a hurry,” said Julian, 
“My Governor can afford to give me a bit of rope. Litera¬ 
ture is my ambition.” 

“It would be!” said Audrey. “The Isis has been responsi¬ 
ble for many lost fortunes and desperate failures.” 

“Something after the style of John Masefield,” continued 
Julian. “Real stuff. Perhaps I’ll have a shot at a play. 
Blank verse, of course.” 

“Who’s your father to pay for such a hobby?” asked 
Audrey. “Horribly rich, of course, by the way you fling 
your money around. And that car of yours!” 

Julian looked embarrassed. 

“Not over rich. He used to be poor.” 

“A war profiteer? What luck!” 

Julian tried to avoid her cross-questioning. His face had 
flushed uneasily. 

“Didn’t Clatworthy tell you ?” 

“Not a word. Is it a dark secret? Not the public hang¬ 
man or anything like that ?” 

“More disgraceful,” said Julian. “He’s the editor of The 


Heirs Apparent 31 

Week, ‘All the Truth.’ The largest circulation of any Sun¬ 
day paper. Frightful, isn’t it?” 

Audrey found it amusing, but not frightful. 

“How perfectly thrilling! What a lot you must know 
about Society Scandals and the tit-bits of the Divorce Court. 
Are you going to became a journalist and defend the dear old 
British Empire from all slander and assault?” 

“Not that degradation,” said Julian. 

“Oh, I don’t know. I wouldn’t mind being a lady reporter 
if the life is anything like a novel I read—‘The Street of Ad¬ 
venture.’ ” 

“It isn’t,” said Julian. “And the proprietor of The Week 
is one of the worst scoundrels in England. It’s a disgrace 
to be associated with him.” 

“Victor Buckland ?” 

Audrey quoted a familiar line. 

“—‘Another powerful article by Victor Buckland (inset) 
will appear in the next issue of The Week, entitled “Why 
God Loves the Englishman.’”—Well, you must admit he’s 
patriotic, Julian. Where would the British Empire be with¬ 
out dear old Buckland?” 

“Infernal old hypocrite!” growled Julian. “A Junker with 
his tongue in his cheek. The most poisonous influence in 
English life. Have another pickle?” 

Audrey preferred a black coffee. 

It was while he was ordering it and Audrey was smoking 
a cigarette over a copy of The Sketch before a wood fire in 
the lounge that Julian was startled by a friendly voice. 

“Hullo, young Perryam!” 

Julian swung round on his heel and saw an elderly man 
in a golf suit. He had a broad, good-humoured face, very 
bronzed, with a little grey moustache on the upper lip. It 
was Major Iffield, a friend and neighbour of his father’s at 
Gorse Hill. 

Julian greeted him without enthusiasm. 

“Good evening, sir. You here?” 

“Very much here.” 

Major Iffield explained that he had been spending a week- 


32 Heirs Apparent 

end with the Hetheringtons at Boar’s Hill, and had broken 
down hopelessly in his car on the way back a mile outside 
Henley. 

“The worst of a cheap car! Come and have a whiskey or 
something.” 

“Afraid I can’t,” said Julian coldly. “I’m with a friend.” 

“Oh, well, bring him along,” said Major Iffield. 

“It’s a lady,” said Julian. 

He glanced toward Audrey, who turned round and smiled. 

For a moment Major Iffield looked slightly startled. But 
he was obviously a gentleman, though a little clumsy in his 
manner. 

“Perhaps you’ll allow me to join you? It’s extremely bor¬ 
ing alone.” 

“By all means,” answered Julian. “Audrey, this is Major 
Iffield. . . . Miss Audrey Nye.” 

The Major bowed and shook hands with Audrey in a 
hearty way. 

“Daughter of Mr. Nye of Hartland?” he asked. 

“Alas, yes!” said Audrey. “A clergyman’s daughter, and 
wedded to holy poverty.” 

Major Iffield laughed rather noisily. 

“I have a great admiration for your father, any way. 
Would either of you young people like any refreshment? A 
liqueur—lemonade . . . ?” 

“Nothing at all, thanks,” said Audrey graciously. “A lit¬ 
tle bed for me very soon.” 

“Oh, it’s early yet,” said the Major. 

He asked a few questions about Oxford, fie had been 
at the House—a million years ago. But Oxford didn’t 
change. The spirit of youth survived. Nothing could change 
that. Not even the Great War! 

A shadow crossed his heavy, good-humoured face, and he 
sighed a little. 

“You were too young for that, Perryam?” 

“Yes. By a year.” 

“Lucky for you. Above all, lucky for your father.” 

Oh, I don’t know,” said Julian carelessly. “I missed 
something, I expect.” 


Heirs Apparent 33 

Major Iffield seemed to find those words amusing. 

“You certainly did! Very unpleasant things, if they hap¬ 
pened to hit you. But I forgot! It’s bad form to talk about 
the War, I’m told. Do you play golf at all?” 

He told a few golf stories which Julian found very dull, 
though they seemed to amuse Audrey. But she was the 
first to bring the evening to an end. 

“Well ... I confess to somnolence. Good night, Major 
Iffield. Thanks for your anecdotes. They will make my 
father laugh.” 

“Excellent,” said Major Iffield. 

“Coming, Julian?” asked Audrey. 

Julian yawned rather theatrically. 

“Yes, I’m dog tired. Good night, sir.” 

“Good night, Perryam. I hope to see your father soon. 
Delighted to have run against you.” 

Julian and Audrey went up the brown oak staircase to 
their bedrooms. They did not see Major Iffield walk quietly 
into the hall and look in the register book, and then stare 
after them with a kind of trouble in his kindly eyes until 
they disappeared on the first floor. 

Audrey was holding Julian’s hand. She was really tired. 

“A bore meeting people sometimes,” she said. 

“Especially that Major man. A hero of the late unmen¬ 
tionable, but rather wearisome. Those golf stories!” 

“Thirty-one, thirty-two,” said Audrey, peering at the old 
oak doors. “Which do you want ?” 

Julian opened both doors, and turned on the lights. Each 
room was furnished in an exactly similar way, a little white 
bed, a Georgian chest of drawers, a wash-hand stand with 
marble top, a dressing-table and looking-glass, two brass 
candlesticks without candles on the mantelpiece, an old oak 
beam across the ceiling. 

“Thirty-one for me,” said Audrey. “To avoid argument.” 

She smiled at him as he undid the knapsack and rum¬ 
maged for her blue silk pyjamas, silver-backed hair brush, 
tooth brush and things. 

“It’s been a great day, Julian!” 

“Topping. How’s the fetlock?” 


34 Heirs Apparent 

“That's nothing. There’ll be worse things to bear at the 
journey’s end. Family indignation. Sordid domesticity. 
. . . Thanks for this adventure, my dear.” 

She held out her hand to him, and when he took it put 
her face up for him to kiss. 

“Think so?” asked Julian, doubtfully, and with a hint of 
embarrassment. “What about Clatworthy ?” 

She flushed quickly and laughed. 

“What’s that to do with it ? I don’t belong to him.” 

“All right then!” 

He kissed her on the cheek, without any ardour. Then 
she took up her things, and with a “Sleep well!” went to her 
own room with a little smile about her lips. 

Julian undressed in a leisurely way, read a pocket edition 
of Rupert Brooke in bed, and then turned off his switch with 
a sleepy yawn as the heavy footsteps of Major Iffield strode 
along the passage. 


VI 


HEY did not walk further than Henley, and in a 



JL prosaic way took the train to Town after luncheon at 
the White Hart on the following day. From Paddington 
they taxied to Victoria and took different trains home, as 
their stations were on separate lines in Surrey. 

The reason for this departure from the open road was 
Audrey’s ankle. She confessed at a late breakfast (ten 
o’clock) that it was badly swollen and unfit for further walk¬ 
ing of a heroic kind. 

“I’m a broken reed,” she declared with shame. “And to 
think that I played hockey for Somerville! I’m a disgrace 
to my sex.” 

This humiliation did not prevent her from making an ex¬ 
cellent breakfast nor from recovering her love of life and 
beauty when she lay back in a punt which Julian piloted 
with easy grace down Henley Reach. They lay up for a 
time under the lawn of Phyllis Court where geraniums were 
in bloom and Audrey dabbled her hands in the sparkling 
water, and delivered sundry remarks upon the jolliness of 
nature with occasional quotations, from the poems of Rupert 
Brooke, Bliss Carmen, John Masefield, and E. V. Lucas. 
After that it began to rain so that the punt cushions were 
wet and the trees dripped upon them as they smoked cigar¬ 
ettes in a little backwater to which they glided for shelter, 
and a cold breeze caused Audrey to sneeze several times in 
succession. 

“So much for England in May-time!” said Julian with 
sarcasm. 

“Yes. You poet laddies ignore the brutal realities. I ex¬ 
pect I’ll catch my death of cold,” remarked Audrey, as 
though it was all Julian’s fault. 

“And that’s the girl who wanted to sleep out last night 
and play hide-and-seek with the moonbeams!” 


35 


36 Heirs Apparent 

A well-flung cushion at his head was the answer to that 
reminder of romantic aspirations. He dodged it and it fell 
into the river and Audrey squealed with joy as he fished it 
out with the punt-hook, all soppy. After that they had gone 
back to the White Hart, eaten a prodigious lunch (in spite of 
the ten o’clock breakfast) and caught the 2.15 to Town. 
They saw no more of Major Iffield and learnt from the 
waiter that he had motored off at half-past nine in his two- 
seater Standard, which had been repaired. 

At Victoria Julian bought several illustrated weeklies 
which he put on Audrey’s lap as she sat in the corner of a 
third-class smoking carriage, opposite an old gentleman who 
regarded her with disapproval when she lit a cigarette from 
her own tortoise shell case. 

“Keep in touch with me, Julian,” was her parting remark. 
“I shall languish in disgrace and gloom henceforth. No 
more binges. No more cocktails! No more adventure!” 

“Heaps more adventure,” said Julian. “Anyhow I’ll come 
over and carry you off when that little old car is running 
again.” 

“Promise? Honest Injun?” 

She exacted the promise anxiously, as though it were of 
high importance. 

“Parole d’honneur!” said Julian. 

She held his hand a minute before the train moved off, 
and afterwards put her head out of the window and waved 
to him. 

“Nice kid!” said Julian, as he sloped to the station book¬ 
stall, and bought The Light Car, Punch and a new novel of 
Compton Mackenzie’s. He smiled to himself at the remem¬ 
brance of that walk to Henley. It had been quite amusing. 
A good episode. Standing without a hat waiting for the 
train to Guildford, he remembered that Audrey had left her 
pyjamas and things in the knapsack still slung over his 
shoulder and he laughed to himself at this forgetfulness. A 
few elderly people glanced at him with approving eyes, be¬ 
cause of that laugh and his look of health and youth. Per¬ 
haps they remembered for a moment the Youth that had 
gone to a war and not come back. They did not guess that 


Heirs Apparent 37 

he had been sent down from Oxford, or had sent himself 
down, and that he hadn’t a notion what to do with life. He 
looked as though he commanded life, with smiling confi¬ 
dence. 

Julian’s arrival home at the big house at Gorse Hill a 
week after he had left for a new term at Oxford surprised 
the servants who were laying tea on the terrace leading to 
the tennis lawn. One of them, old Mary, who had been 
Julian’s nursemaid in days which he only dimly remem¬ 
bered—his people were just advancing to prosperity and 
lived at Wimbledon after their early struggles in Brixton— 
announced her astonishment and delight. 

“Lor’, Mr. Julian! Another ’oliday ? Well, that’s a bless¬ 
ing for you, I’m sure.” 

He enquired casually about the family movements before 
going to his room to wash and change. Mary was full of 
information, as usual, as to the psychological state of the 
people whom she served with fidelity, affection, and occa¬ 
sional outbursts of bad temper. 

“Your Grandpa’s taking a nap in the study. Breaking up, 
in my numble opinion. He’s getting that irritable there’s no 
doing nothing with him. Thinks them damn Germans is up 
to trouble again.” 

“Where are the others ?” 

His sister Janet was playing golf with Cyril Buckland and 
was expected back to tea. But just as like as not, in Mary’s 
opinion, they might not show up till to-morrow’s breakfast. 
Fair daft on them jazz dances, both of them. Of course it 
wasn’t for her to interfere with the goings on of young 
people nor the ruin to their health. The mistress was paying 
an afternoon call at the Ifhelds. Wearing herself out with 
that society stuff. There had never been no peace since 
the good old Brixton days. The master was coming home 
by the train at 4.55 and the car was meeting him at the 
station. Worried, thought Mary, and wouldn’t make old 
bones. Never the same since Mister John was killed, and 
no wonder what with Lloyd George and the Germans and 
everything. . , . 

Julian was in his bath when his sister Janet arrived in 


38 Heirs Apparent 

the garden with Cyril Buckland. He could hear their voices 
talking nineteen to the dozen and Janet’s ripples of laughter. 
Poisonous fellow, Buckland, he thought. The son of Victor 
Buckland, the proprietor of his father’s paper, and the heir 
to the preposterous fortune the old man had made out of 
Jingoism, divorce and social scandal. Young Cyril had been 
wounded on the Somme, but not badly, before he took a 
cushy job at Rouen or somewhere. He told rather blue 
stories after dinner, but was all elegance and epigram with 
ladies present. There were stories about a chorus girl—oh, 
well, that was his affair. 

Julian decided to get into flannels. He might put in a set 
at tennis after tea. Buckland certainly played a good game, 
though rather too showy for actual results. 

Julian pitched his knapsack in a corner of the room and 
wondered when his bags would arrive from Oxford. He 
would have to plant some of his photographs round the 
room. It had been Jack’s room before he was killed outside 
Arras in T7. Five years ago, when Julian was sixteen. He 
remembered the news coming home from the War Office and 
his mother’s grief. It had nearly killed her, and the gov¬ 
ernor had been hard hit too, though afterwards he seemed 
to find some comfort in the thought of Jack’s heroism and 
his own “sacrifice.” Julian was at school then, at Win¬ 
chester. The news of Jack’s death had shocked him in a 
queer way. He had cried a little, he remembered, that night 
in bed, and then thought with a curious sense of inevitability, 
“My turn next. In two years I shall be old enough to join 
up. Then I shall be killed, like all the others.” After that 
there had been no lingering grief in his mind. Poor old 
Jack had been at Sandhurst and they hadn’t seen much of 
each other since childhood. His death put Julian level with 
some of the other kids who had lost brothers in the war and 
bucked about it. What an enormous time ago! All that 
was forgotten now, thank goodness! 

As he chose his tie from a drawer containing a rich va¬ 
riety, Julian heard his father’s arrival by the well-known 
engine beat of an Armstrong Siddely. Presently his father’s 
voice sounded in the garden with a cheerful greeting to 


Heirs Apparent 39 

Janet and the rasper Buckland. His father always adopted 
a breezy cheerfulness with his family and friends, though 
Julian sometimes suspected that it was a kind of mask 
hiding anxieties, disappointments, and some inner fretful¬ 
ness with fate, for causes unknown. 

“Hullo, Jenny, my dear!” 

“Hullo, Dad!” 

“Mother back yet ?” 

“Sure to be here before long.” 

There was a full assembly of the family on the terrace 
when Julian made his appearance, clean, cool, comfortable, 
in new flannels. His mother was at the tea table with its 
silver urn, assisted by a pretty servant maid, and Julian 
noticed that the mater, as he called her, looked ridiculously 
young, as usual. His father, still in city clothes, had undone 
the bottom button of his black waistcoat with a white slip, 
and was sitting back in a deck chair enjoying a cigar. Janet 
in a fawn coloured golf frock sat with a cup of tea in her 
lap, looking pleased with herself. Her coil of flaxen hair 
caught the sun, and gleamed like pale gold. Julian’s grand¬ 
father, a tall old man in a grey frock-coat and trousers 
newly pressed, sat up stiffly in a cane chair with his thin 
white hands clasping the ivory handle of an ebony stick. 

Julian’s arrival on the terrace certainly created a sensa¬ 
tion among some members of the family. 

His father took the cigar out of his mouth and raised 1 n- 
self in the deck chair. 

“You here, Julian? Anything the matter?” 

Janet opened her blue eyes very wide, expressing aston¬ 
ishment. 

“Nothing the matter,” said Julian calmly, though his fine 
skin flushed ever so slightly. “I’ve left Oxford. That’s 
all.” 

“Left Oxford!” 

The words were spoken almost together by Mr. Perryam 
and Janet. 

Mrs. Perryam had shown no sign of surprise at her son’s 
sudden return, though she had a heightened colour, and a 
queer little smile in those violet coloured eyes which he had 


40 Heirs Apparent 

once thought were the most beautiful in the world. She had 
the look of a great lady and it was impossible to believe 
that she had once kept a little house in Brixton without a 
servant. 

“I was at the Iffields’ this afternoon,” she said with a 
comical sideways glance at Julian. “Major Iffield told me 
he had seen you at Henley yesterday—with a friend.” 

Julian nodded. 

“I thought he’d pass the word along.” 

“Rather rummy idea, wasn’t it?” asked his mother. 
“Walking back like that, I mean ?” 

“Nothing wrong with it,” said Julian. 

“Well, I hope not, my dear. You boys and girls do amaz¬ 
ing things these days.” 

Mr. Perryam did not seem to follow the drift of this con¬ 
versation. 

“What do you mean by saying you’ve left Oxford, old 
boy?” he asked anxiously. “You mean for a day in Town 
or something?” 

“No,” said Julian, with a bored look. “Down for good. 
They would probably have sent me down anyhow—for one 
or two dances I put in after hours—but I took the matter 
into my own hands. . . . Cup of tea, mother?” 

“Well, I’m blowed,” said Janet. “You are a freak, 
Julian!” 

“Hard luck, old man!” said Cyril Buckland, grinning at 
Julian and brushing up the little moustache on his upper lip. 
“Not that there’s much in it. I was sent down from Cam¬ 
bridge before the war and it didn’t blast my reputation, as 
far as I know.” 

“Do they provide you with reputations at that village in 
the Midlands?” asked Julian with the insolence of Oxford 
to the rival University. 

Cyril Buckland, who was five years older than Julian, 
looked slightly annoyed at this gibe, but passed it off with an 
air of good humour. 

“Not original, laddie. Try another.” 

Julian’s grandfather, who had been listening with a look 


Heirs Apparent 41 

of strained attention, dug his stick into the gravel of the 
terrace and spoke in a querulous voice. 

“I can’t think why you young men and women don’t take 
things more seriously. It’s all tennis and golf and the pic¬ 
ture palaces, and flying about in motor cars. Why can’t you 
stay in the same place a bit ? Gadding about, rushing about, 
never satisfied! When I was a young clerk in the Board 
of Trade, and courting your grandmother, Julian, I used to 
hurry back from work to mow the little lawn at Herne Hill, 
and then study French or something after supper. I used 
to read Emerson, Carlyle, Darwin, John Stuart Mill, to im¬ 
prove my mind and serve my country. Now that the war’s 
over you young men don’t seem able to settle down or think 
of the future. Of course I know you think I’m an old 
fool—” 

His voice trailed off into a melancholy wail. 

“No, we don’t, Grandpa,” said Janet. “You’ve a lot of 
wisdom in your old noddle, only it’s a bit out of date. 
Drink up your tea, there’s a dear.” 

Mr. Perryam was looking at his son with the same air of 
anxious enquiry. He was a fair-haired, florid-complexioned 
man, with a touch of grey on each side of his temples. 

“I can’t quite understand,” he said in a vexed way. “Do 
you mean to say you have deliberately abandoned your Uni¬ 
versity career, or wrecked it by some kind of rag?” 

“It amounts to that, if you call it a career,” said Julian, 
helping himself to some gooseberry jam. 

Mr. Perryam threw his cigar into one of the flower-beds. 

“I do call it a career,” he said, breathing rather hard. “I 
wanted you to take a good degree and do well at the Union 
and all that. I counted on a brilliant future for you.” 

“Oh, Lord!” said Julian. 

Mr. Perryam did not like that “Oh, Lord!” and his face 
flushed rather angrily. 

“Why not? I’ve given you chances which I couldn’t af¬ 
ford as a young man. I had to pick up my education as I 
went along. I had to read hard after reporting jobs. I’d 
have given my right hand to go to Oxford.” 


42 Heirs Apparent 

“It isn’t worth it,” said Julian. “It’s a much over-rated in- 
stitution. A kindergarten.” 

“But my dear fellow—” 

“Now then, you two!” said Mrs. Perryam, in her cheery 
way, “Don’t let’s have a dog-fight over the tea-table. It’s 
rather rough on our guest here.” 

“Don’t mind me,” said Cyril Buckland. “I want to be 
regarded as one of the family.” 

He glanced at Janet with an air of gallantry, and she made 
a little grimace at him, but blushed very charmingly. 

“Well,” said Mr. Perryam, with a rather weak laugh, “I 
don’t want to play the domestic tyrant. Not in my line! 
You know I only want your happiness, Julian, old boy. We 
had better have a talk about this later.” 

“Must we?” asked Julian, without enthusiasm. 

His father did not answer, but left the tea-table whistling 
with sham cheerfulness. But he had a worried look, and 
Julian noticed that he was getting a little flabby, with a 
heavy way of breathing. It was his work on that infernal 
paper which debauched the mind of the English public. 

Julian’s grandfather made another speech without ap¬ 
parent reference to the immediate situation. 

“Of course we’re playing the fool with the Germans. In 
my opinion there’ll be another war in twenty years. This 
poison gas they’ve invented would choke London before you 
could get an antidote. Why, even this garden would be 
blasted so that not a leaf could grow! And nobody seems 
to mind! Young men are idling about without definite aim. 
The whole world is flouting the will of God. I was only 
reading in the papers yesterday—” 

Mrs. Perryam laughed and patted him on his bony old 
knee. 

“Never you mind what you read in the papers, Grandpa. 
It’s all a pack of lies. Except in The Week, of course!” 

“Ay, lies,” said the old man. “That’s the trouble. Every¬ 
body’s lying. As if I couldn’t see through it all!” 

“I’ll take on the Perryam family at tennis,” announced 
Cyril Buckland. 

Julian and Janet accepted his challenge. 


VII 


C YRIL BUCKLAND stayed to dinner without being 
invited, to the evident displeasure of Mr. Perryam, 
who was cold in his manner to the son of his proprietor. 

“He seems to be making a home of the place,” said Julian 
to his mother in a tone of extreme annoyance, as he went 
up to his room to change again and put on a dinner jacket. 
His vexation was not entirely due to the complete defeat 
he had suffered on the tennis court from Cyril’s punishing 
serves and rapid work at the net with a rather supercilious 
smile every time he secured a point and his final trium¬ 
phant enquiry of “What about that village in the Mid¬ 
lands ?” 

Mrs. Perryam answered her son’s protest with a cheery 
laugh. 

“He’s all right!” 

She hesitated a moment and then spoke with an amusing 
little wink. 

“I think he’s rather taken with Janet.” 

“Obviously,” said Julian. “But if I have anything to say 
about it, Janet’s not going to get fond of him. I couldn’t 
stick such a blighter for a brother-in-law.” 

Mrs. Perryam showed a complete disregard for his ruffled 
feelings. 

“That’s for Janet to decide, and it hasn’t got as far as 
that yet, or anything like it. Your father is dreadfully 
prejudiced against the poor boy simply because he happens 
to be Victor Buckland’s son.” 

“Very wise of the governor,” said Julian. 

“Not at all,” answered his mother calmly. “With Cyril 
as his son-in-law it would consolidate his position on The 
Week. It would make me feel much more secure. I’ve 
suffered enough from the uncertainty of journalism. Up 
to-day and down to-morrow.” 

Julian stared at his mother with angry surprise. 

43 


44 Heirs Apparent 

“Good Lord, what a horrible idea! I didn’t know you 
were so mercenary, mother. Putting Janet up for sale!” 

Mrs. Perryam thrust her fingers through his hair. 

“Now then, my lad! None of your Oxford superiority! 
I’m not taking any. See?” 

Julian mumbled something like an apology. 

“Sorry, mother. But it’s a disgusting idea, it seems to 
me. 

He went up to his room gloomily, and decided to tell 
Janet what he knew of Cyril’s private character. The fel¬ 
low was perfectly poisonous, non-moral to the last degree. 
Dash it all, Janet had a right to know before making a little 
ass of herself. 

At dinner he was distinctly cold to Cyril’s conversational 
efforts and disliked the way in which Janet played up to 
them and laughed at little idiotic remarks which Cyril Buck- 
land seemed to mistake for brilliant wit. He noticed that 
Janet looked more grown-up than when she had last come 
back from her convent school in Switzerland. She was 
wearing an evening frock, cut rather low at the neck, and 
with bare arms, and her hair was done in a new style which 
made her look a little like Gladys Cooper. He realised with 
a shock of surprise that she was extremely pretty, with 
those coils of fair hair, and blue eyes with long lashes, and 
a laughing kind of mouth. She was no longer the child 
he had treated with lofty disdain and brotherly condescen¬ 
sion. She was the sort of girl that would send Stokes 
Prichard off the deep end and make him quote poetry by 
the yard. And she was getting impudent, too, and consid¬ 
erably bumptious. When Julian opposed some statement 
of Cyril’s about the right way to hold a tennis racket, she 
turned to him with a flash of temper and said, “After your 
dismal display this afternoon you needn’t pose as a tennis 
champion, old boy! Allow some one else to express an 
opinion.” 

“It isn’t a question of opinion,” answered Julian. “It’s 
a matter of scientific fact.” 

“Good old Oxford!” said Janet scornfully. “Always so 
knowing!” 


Heirs Apparent 45 

Mr. Perryam sat at the head of the table rather silently, 
with an absent-minded look. Now and then he made an 
effort to be bright, and passed unnecessary things to Cyril 
Buckland or Janet, and made some obvious remarks with 
rather forced cheerfulness about the weather. Nobody paid 
much attention to him, as usual, and he relapsed into silence 
again. Once he looked over at Julian and said, “What’s 
the general opinion in Oxford, old boy, about the interna¬ 
tional situation?” 

Julian smiled with a little secret amusement. It was 
rather like one of Grandfather’s interruptions. 

“They’re not worrying about it, sir.” 

“Then they ought to,” said Perryam. “It’s having a 
disastrous effect on trade.” He raised his head, as though 
to give expression to some pent-up ideas, but seeing that 
nobody was prepared to listen—Cyril Buckland was making 
a rabbit out of his table-napkin and pretending to bite 
Janet’s bare arm with it—he only sighed. 

Grandfather chewed his meat with grim pertinacity and 
once nearly choked over a bit of gristle, so that Janet had 
to thump him on the back. 

After dinner Cyril and Janet went into the billiard room 
for a game of “pills,” as Cyril called it—he would, thought 
Julian—and Mrs. Perryam went to write some letters. 

“Come into my study, Julian,” said his father. 

It was Julian’s turn to sigh. Indeed he gave a little 
groan. The Governor wanted explanations, of course. 
And he wouldn’t understand, and he would be irritable 
and angry and plaintive and affectionate, and make Julian 
feel constrained and untruthful and ungrateful, and all that. 

That was exactly what happened. 

Mr. Perryam offered Julian a fat cigar and protested that 
he was over-smoking himself and hoped Julian was putting 
a limit on tobacco. It was certainly not good for the 
heart. He made a few remarks about the neighbourhood. 
Everything was going down owing to high taxation. The 
Bellairs had given up their old house and park. The family 
had been there for five hundred years. Many other old 
places were up for sale—White Cross, General Langley’s 


46 Heirs Apparent 

place, the Mervyns’ estate near Westcott, old Oliver’s, Lord 
Culross’s. The Government was crippling Capital. That 
super-tax was iniquitous. The Middle Classes, to say noth¬ 
ing of the old aristocracy, were being ground to dust. Busi¬ 
ness was in a bad way. 

It was quite a time before the inevitable question hap¬ 
pened. Julian smiled faintly when it came. He had been 
expecting it a long while ago. 

“What about this idea of leaving Oxford, old boy? 
Surely you’re not serious?” 

“Perfectly serious. I’m fed up with it. I’ve got all I 
want out of it.” 

“But my dear lad, it’s a disgrace to leave it like that.” 

“Disgrace?” said Julian blandly. “Oh, Lord, no!” 

“Sent down. Without a degree. I’m desperately disap¬ 
pointed.” 

“What’s the use of a degree?” asked Julian. “It doesn’t 
mean anything. Any fool can get it, and lots do. Surely 
you don’t imagine its a guarantee of scholarship or intel¬ 
lectual attainment?” 

“To some extent,” said Mr. Perryam, “surely?” 

“Good Heavens, no! That’s a hopelessly old-fashioned 
notion.” 

“Then I’m hopelessly old-fashioned,” said Mr. Perryam, 
with an uneasy laugh. “I’ve always had a respect for a 
man who could put B.A. after his name. My education has 
been so slipshod, so hugger-mugger. I’ve had to pick it up 
all myself, and even now I know very little of the classics 
except what I’ve read in translations, like Gilbert Mur¬ 
ray’s. I’d give a lot to read Horace in the original—and 
iEschylus.” 

Julian laughed at him. 

“My dear Governor, do you think the average fellow who 
takes a degree can read Greek and Latin with any freedom 
or pleasure? He only comes away from Oxford with the 
deep conviction that there are such languages, after painful 
swotting over a few cram books with the handy crib.” 

“Then what do you learn?” asked Perryam patiently. 


Heirs Apparent 47 

“Do you mean to tell me the whole University system is a 
fraud?” 

“Not quite that,” said Julian, with judicial impartiality. 
“One has a good time, of course—though it bored me stiff 
after a bit. One makes some very decent friends, one gets 
a bit of atmosphere, a little smattering of ancient learning, 
utterly useless, but not unamusing, and one learns how to 
tie a decent bow, how to handle a punt, how to hold a golf 
club or a cricket bat, how to tip a waiter with easy non¬ 
chalance, and many expensive and agreeable tastes. Ox¬ 
ford stamps one with the hall mark of a social caste recog¬ 
nised by an affected accent, superior manners, and the snob 
instinct.” 

“There’s more in it than that, old boy,” said Perryam. 
“I’m afraid you’ve got into the wrong set.” 

“On the contrary,” said Julian, “I was lucky in avoiding 
the aesthetes with their side whiskers, doped cigarettes and 
cult of immorality. I also gave a miss, more or less, to the 
husky crowd who drink four cocktails before dinner and 
go up the river for deliberate drunks. I consorted with the 
normal crowd who’ll soon be down looking for a job in 
life without a notion what it’s going to be and with an 
Oxford education as their handicap.” 

“I’m afraid you’ve been cultivating cynicism, old boy,” 
said Mr. Perryam. 

“The privilege of youth,” said Julian with a faint smile. 

His father rose from his chair and flung his half-finished 
cigar into the fire-grate as at tea-time he had thrown another 
into a flower-bed. 

“The privilege of youth,” he repeated. “Cynicism! . . . 
Frankly I don’t understand what’s happened to young men 
after the war. Poor dear Jack wasn’t like that. What’s 
come over you all, Julian? You seem to have lost zest. 
You’re all hard in your ideas and slack in your habits. 
Fearfully slack. The fellows in my office have their eye 
on the clock all the time. I used to work night and day 
as a young journalist, and think nothing of it.” 

“It doesn’t seem worth while these days,” said Julian. 


48 Heirs Apparent 

“The standard of value has altered, I suppose. We think 
more of life and less of money-making.” 

Mr. Perryam cleared his throat huskily. 

“I don’t find young men scornful of money, old boy. Not 
a bit of it. More wages for less work. Look at Labour. 
My God—look at Labour!” 

“What’s the matter with it?” asked Julian. 

“Don’t you study the question at Oxford?” asked Mr. 
Perryam. “Don’t you know that Labour with its socialistic 
programme is going to complete the ruin of England which 
the War began? Why, they’ll tax people like me till we 
might as well throw up the sponge. What’s the good of 
individual initiative, enterprise, the struggle for success? 
Unless you fellows fight it, Julian, you’re going to see 
Socialism reduce England to the level of a Boer Re¬ 
public.” 

“It’s Labour’s day out,” said Julian. “They’ve got most 
of the brains and all the arguments. A nuisance, I admit, 
for people like ourselves.” 

“If we take it lying down,” said his father. “If the young 
men of to-day don’t care a damn they’ll find themselves 
in Queer Street before long. And they don’t seem to care. 
That’s what bothers me.” 

“We’re not worrying,” said Julian. “What’s the use?” 

His father answered with a touch of irritation. 

“No. You’re not worrying! It’s we older folk who have 
to do the worrying. Look at my life. A continual struggle, 
ceaseless worry, desperately hard work. I’ve known the 
ups and downs of a journalist’s life, the frightful insecurity 
of tenure, the serfdom of ‘the Street.’ I’ve been turned 
out of good jobs by the whim of an editor, or a change of 
proprietorship. I’ve known the terrors of a free-lance, 
writing articles, stories, advertisements, to pay the weekly 
bills, and agonising when all one’s ideas give out, and worry 
causes sleepless nights and incapacity for work. Your 
mother and I have known hard times, old boy, before suc¬ 
cess came! But I never showed the white feather. I’ve 
fought hard for my present position—and I have to fight 
hard to keep it, I don’t mind telling you! That fellow 


Heirs Apparent 49 

Buckland— However, you don’t worry! You young men 
are not worrying! That’s the trouble.” 

“What’s the trouble?” asked Julian coldly. “Why worry? 
What’s the use?” 

Mr. Perryam was silent for a few moments and glanced 
at his son wearily once or twice. 

“Perhaps I worry too much,” he said presently. “I’ll 
admit that. The fact is I’m becoming obsessed with the 
international situation. I don’t like the look of it. God 
knows I played up during the war, and all that. . . . But 
this Peace! It seems to me nothing but an armed truce. 
. . . And we’re raking up the old hatreds again, creating 
new enemies. France instead of Germany, or Russia as 
well as Germany. I can’t stand, privately, for French policy 
in the Ruhr. It’s asking for trouble in the near future. 
Anyhow it doesn’t make for European recovery or the 
spirit of peace. I confess I’m afraid of what’s boiling up 
in Europe again. Not for my own sake. I’ve had my 
innings. But for young fellows like you, Julian—the 
younger brothers of the elder brothers. . . . But you’re not 
worrying!” 

He repeated Julian’s phrase for the third time as though 
it had fascinated him. 

Julian looked at his father with amusement, and spoke 
with irony. 

“It’s a pity your private views conflict with your public 
policy. I mean the blood and thunder patriotism of the 
dear old Week. ‘To Hell with the Huns.’ ‘Why should 
France be supreme in the Air?’ ‘Are we going to lie down 
to America ?’— That sort of thing doesn’t make for peace, 
I imagine?” 

Mr. Perryam coloured slightly and laughed uneasily. 

“I have to carry out Buckland’s policy. They’re not my 
views. I’m not a free agent, old boy.” 

“A bought man!” said Julian coldly. 

His father started in his chair, and for the first time 
answered angrily. 

“I don’t like that phrase, Julian! I’d advise you not to 
use it again.” 


50 Heirs Apparent 

“Sorry, sir,” said Julian, amiably, but not ruffled. 

Mr. Perryam recovered his good humour with an effort. 

“In a way we’re all bought men. We all have to com¬ 
promise with our ideas in order to earn a livelihood or 
establish a career. The barrister pleads from a brief, much 
in the same way as I do. Advocates a case without neces¬ 
sarily believing in it. In the Army a man has to carry out 
orders even if they lead to death and disaster.” 

“Yes, but not to the degradation of the human intellect 
or the loss of his own soul,” said Julian in his best Union 
manner. 

His careless words seemed to hit his father like a blow 
in the face, though he was unaware of the hurt he had 
inflicted, and tapped a cigarette on a silver case before put¬ 
ting a match to it. 

Mr. Perryam became pale, and the lines under his eyes 
darkened. But once again he forced himself to smile at 
this handsome boy of his upon whom all his ambition had 
been set. 

“I hope I haven’t sold my soul to the devil because I 
take old Buckland’s salary,” he said with a forced laugh. 
“Don’t forget this, old boy: The Week, with all its faults 
—and I don’t say it’s nobler than its rivals—maintains this 
household in something like luxury and supported you 
rather handsomely at Oxford.” 

“That’s so,” Julian admitted graciously. “In that way 
it serves a useful purpose, perhaps. The individual gains 
at the expense of the community, as usual.” 

Mr. Perryam regarded his son’s handsome profile with 
secret admiration. Much as this boy’s words hurt at times 
his youthful arrogance was not deliberately unkind nor— 
alas!—entirely unjustified. 

“Well,” he said, after a pause, “I didn’t bring you in here 
for controversial purposes. What do you propose doing 
now you’ve left Oxford? Any idea?” 

“A few vague ideas,” said Julian cautiously. 

Mr. Perryam laughed good-humouredly again. “Vague 
ideas won’t carry you far, old boy. Haven’t you any ambi¬ 
tion? The Law? The Foreign Office? The Indian Civil?” 


Heirs Apparent 51 

“No,” said Julian decidedly. “The Law’s overcrowded, 
and the Civil Service would bore me to death.” 

“What about journalism?” asked Mr. Perry am reluc¬ 
tantly. “I could get you a job on The Week. It’s a good 
training, and with all its faults Fleet Street still holds out 
prizes to men of talent. Only you would have to begin 
at the bottom of the ladder, as I did.” 

Julian rose from his chair impatiently, with a sudden 
flush on his face. 

“No, I’m damned if I do! Not the stunt press, with its 
divorce news and fabricated lies and dirty politics and split 
infinitives and hopeless vulgarities. Not after Winchester 
and Balliol.” 

“Why not?” asked Mr. Perryam coldly. “Do you think 
we haven’t Balliol men in Fleet Street? Why, I refuse 
jobs to them every other day!” 

“Anyhow, I’d rather sweep a crossing, father. It’s 
cleaner, from what I’ve seen.” 

Mr. Perryam looked rather crushed. His eyes avoided 
Julian’s cold and contemptuous gaze. 

“There are other papers besides The Week,” he an¬ 
swered humbly. “Still, I don’t want to force you into jour¬ 
nalism, old boy. I’d rather you went into business, or any¬ 
thing else, not because I despise my profession—I don’t!— 
but because I know its difficulties and disadvantages only 
too well. But what’s your alternative?” 

Julian thrust his hands into the pockets of his dinner 
jacket. 

“Is there any immediate hurry? I suppose my allowance 
goes on as usual?” 

His father smiled at him, rather ironically. 

“Oh, The Week will help to pay for it, if you’ll con¬ 
descend to take such filthy money.” 

Then as though repenting of his sarcasm, he spoke seri¬ 
ously and tenderly. 

“What’s your scheme, Julian? I’ll back anything for 
your happiness, as long as you set to work. I’d hate to see 
you lounging—at a loose end—like so many fellows to-day. 
I couldn’t bear that.” 


52 Heirs Apparent 

“I want to take my time,” said Julian. “I’ve an idea of 
writing.” 

“Writing?” 

His father was frankly astonished. 

“Isn’t that the same thing as journalism?” 

“No,” said Julian. “Utterly different. I mean Litera¬ 
ture. Plays, novels, verses.” 

“Literature, eh?” 

His father shook his head and smiled. 

“I had that idea once. Then I became a journalist and 
earned my living.” 

“Some fellows make pots of money,” said Julian. “Bar¬ 
rie, Galsworthy, Shaw, Compton Mackenzie. Not that I’m 
out for money.” 

Mr. Perryam laughed with real enjoyment this time. 

“It’s useful. I find it necessary. Still if you happen to 
be a genius, old lad, you may be able to support me in my 
old age.” 

“I don’t pretend to genius,” said Julian modestly, “but 
I have a few ideas, and perhaps a touch of style. Any¬ 
how I can but try.” 

“Certainly,” said Mr. Perryam. “And there’s always 
Fleet Street as a last resource. Or even the workhouse, 
or the unemployment dole.” 

He repented again of satire. This boy of his was so 
young, so self-confident, so unwounded by life’s disillu¬ 
sions. How he envied him! He put his hand on Julian’s 
shoulder. 

“I’ll be proud of any success you make, old lad. Be 
sure of that. I can at least put the reviewers to work. 
‘Published to-day. Brilliant first novel.’ There’ll be no 
holding your mother down.” 

“Oh, well, it mayn’t come off,” said Julian. “I don’t 
buck in advance.” 

Janet’s voice rang out from the garden path through the 
French windows of Mr. Perryam’s study. 

“Coming to have a game of Bridge, you two?” 

“Coming, Kiddy,” answered her father. 


VIII 


W HEN Julian went up to bed that night with a novel 
by Galsworthy under his arm his mother stood by 
his bedroom door and said in a smiling but rather aggres¬ 
sive way, “I want to speak to you, my lad!” 

“What’s the trouble, mother o’ mine?” asked Julian. 

He noticed that she looked in what he used to call a 
“spanking” mood when as a small boy she administered 
punishment regretfully but firmly. He thought also how 
jolly she looked in her evening gown of white velvet with a 
sprig of diamonds in her hair which did not show a thread 
of grey unless one looked very carefully. He knew the faint 
colour in her cheeks was not natural but due to a touch 
of papier poudre, but he thought no worse of her for that. 
She had an elegance which did not belong to many mothers 
of the men he knew. Impossible to believe that she had 
once cooked his father’s meals in a little Brixton villa, and 
dressed on twenty pounds a year, as often she reminded 
Janet! ... It was funny that Janet’s hair should be straw- 
coloured when his mother’s was as dark as Audrey Nye’s. 

“You’re looking fine to-night,” he said, with admiration 
in his eyes. 

She went into his room and closed the door, and stood 
looking at him with smiling but reproachful eyes. 

“You needn’t try to flatter me into a good temper, sonny. 
I’m going to have it out with you—straight!” 

“What on earth do you mean, mother?” 

He was startled by her touch of temper. 

“Surely you’re not fussing because I’ve come down from 
Oxford?” 

“No,” she said, “not that, though I’m ashamed of you for 
being so foolish, and worrying poor old Dad. I mean 
something worse than that, Julian. Past the limit, in my 
opinion.” 

Julian cast about in his mind for some grievous crime 
53 


54 Heirs Apparent 

he might have committed. Debts? Well, he owed a bit in 
Oxford, but not enough to alarm his mother. She was a 
bit of a spender too. And anyhow how did she know? 
Getting drunk one night at the Oxford Carlton? No, she 
couldn’t have heard of that, and after all it might happen 
once in a life time to the most self-respecting man. 

“Haven’t an idea!” he said. “What’s your worry, 
mother ?” 

“If you don’t know, you ought to. That’s all. I was 
at the Iffields’ this afternoon. The Major told me he had 
met you at Henley. He said there was a girl with you— 
Audrey Nye. You were staying the night together at the 
White Hart.” 

“It’s just like that rasper to go prattling,” said Julian 
scornfully. “I suspected him of being rather a blighter, in 
spite of his D.S.O. in the dear old war. But what’s the 
matter, anyway ?” 

Mrs. Perryam raised her brown eyebrows. 

“You don’t think it matters? Well, I jolly well do, my 
lad! I wasn’t brought up on the Old Testament like 
Grandpa, but I do believe in keeping straight. And I’ve 
always taught you to be clean and decent. I thought I 
could trust you, young man.” 

“Good Heavens!” said Julian. “Why all this tragic talk 
because I walk from Oxford to Henley with a very nice 
kid? What’s come over you, mother? I didn’t think you 
were one of that sort.” 

“Nor am I,” said Mrs. Perryam. “If you mean one of 
the old cats always interfering with young people, and 
spoiling their fun. I’ve given Janet plenty of rope, and 
you too, Julian, God knows! But I draw the line at this 
kind of thing.” 

“What kind of thing?” 

“The thing I’m talking about. You and that girl. The 
creature!” 

“For Heaven’s sake,” said Julian with desperation, 
“what is this absurd idea at the back of your head, mother ?” 

She became angry with him suddenly. 

“Don’t be impudent, Julian. I won’t stand it. You admit 


Heirs Apparent 55 

going about with that girl. Major Iffield saw you go up¬ 
stairs together. He let the cat out of the bag.” 

‘Til break that man’s head,” said Julian fiercely. 

“And you don’t even trouble to hide the giddy scandal 
of it!” said Mrs. Perryam. “It will be all about the coun¬ 
tryside before the week’s out. A nice thing! What can 
the servants think of you when they find your pyjamas 
wrapped up with a girl’s night things, and hair brushes and 
handkerchiefs, and I don’t know what?” 

Julian laughed loudly, his voice rising to a shrill note of 
mirth in which there was a hint of anger. 

“Well, I’m blessed! That’s the way scandal is made. 
The most innocent affair twisted into something abominable. 
Lives wrecked because of suspicious, creepy-crowly minds. 
What mid-Victorian ideas you must have, mother! As if 
a fellow couldn’t go out for a walk with a well-brought-up 
girl, without any nonsense about it. Mother, I’m ashamed 
of you! I thought you were broader minded. Especially 
seeing the free and easy way in which you let Janet go on!” 

Mrs. Perryam looked relieved, and a little ashamed of 
herself. “Oh, well—if you say there’s nothing in it!” 

“I do,” said Julian. 

“But, look here, sonny! Surely you’re old enough to 
understand—” 

“No,” he said passionately. “And I hope I never shall 
be old enough to understand the miserable, morbid, un¬ 
healthy code under which the last generation seems to have 
been brought up. We’ve got beyond all that sort of non¬ 
sense. Men and girls of to-day aren’t always worrying 
about what people think and fussing over the sex question. 
For Heaven’s sake give us credit for a little decency and 
self-respect.” 

“But Julian, old dear, that girl’s things—why were they 
wrapped up with yours? You can’t tell me that is quite 
decent.” 

“I do tell you,” said Julian. 

His mother was silent, with a little smile about her lips. 

“I can’t understand you young people,” she said pres¬ 
ently. “Perhaps you’re different. Janet says you are dif- 


56 Heirs Apparent 

ferent, all of you. And yet human nature doesn’t change. 
It’s difficult to speak frankly on these things, but when I 
was a girl—not such ages ago either—” 

Julian laughed again, and put his arm round his mother. 

“That’s the trouble with you,” he said. “You don’t un¬ 
derstand that human nature has changed, or at least its 
ideas. You’re all suffering from inhibitions, suppressed 
thoughts, all kinds of horrors due to Queen Victoria and 
the literature of her appalling period. We’re free of all 
that. We’re natural again. We do what we like without 
worrying about Mother Grundy. Because we’re not afraid 
of things no harm is done. See?” 

“It’s jolly dangerous,” said Mrs. Perryam. “One reads 
frightful things about young people in the papers. Besides 
I’m not so old as all that. I know things in my own 
nature—” 

She gave a sidelong glance at her son and blushed a little. 
Then she added something hurriedly. 

“Janet scares the wits out of me sometimes. She laughs 
at everything I tell her.” 

“Oh, Janet knows how to look after herself,” said Julian 
carelessly. “And if she doesn’t, I’ll take care to open her 
eyes. Trust me.” 

“You two!” said Mrs. Perryam with a comical laugh. 
“Your father and I are just slaves to you. Well, it’s no 
use fussing, I suppose.” 

“Not a bit,” said Julian. 

She put her arms about him and kissed his forehead. 

“As long as you don’t make a mess of things, sonny! 
You know I love every hair of your head. Only I wish 
you wouldn’t use so much brilliantine!” 

She gave him a little pat on the cheek and slipped out of 
the room. 

Julian went to his window and leaned out with his elbows 
on the ledge and his face in his hands, staring into the 
garden with its dark trees touched by a faint moonlight, 
and its stone terrace gleaming white beyond the shadow 
of the house. 

“Literature!” he said. “But what about Life?” 


IX 


A UDREY'S arrival home was by taxi cab from Guild- 
>> ford station to the old vicarage at Hartland near 
Clandon, a distance of five miles, at a cost of ten shillings. 
Having saved her fare to town, she considered that she 
was justified in this expense, although undoubtedly there 
would be a fuss about it if her mother discovered the 
extravagance. Anyhow her swollen ankle was a good jus¬ 
tification. 

She had not that easy mind, unconscious of -moral turpi¬ 
tude, which enabled Julian to face his parents with bland 
tranquillity. The announcement that she had been sent 
down from Oxford would not be received as an insignifi¬ 
cant affair. Her mother had “bucked" a good deal about 
“my dear daughter at Somerville" to all the old frumps of 
the surrounding neighbourhood. Her father had reduced 
his smoking allowance and sold some of his rare books as 
a help to the payment of her fees and her pocket money. 
Poor, adorable Dad! The frigid economies of a country 
vicarage, always of the bread-and-scrape order, ever since 
she could remember, and especially since the war, had be¬ 
come still more austere as a consequence of her University 
career. Even the two babes, Julia and Celia, aged ten and 
twelve, had suffered in the restriction of jam, pocket money, 
and other creature comforts, because their eldest sister was 
to do brilliant things at Oxford before getting an appoint¬ 
ment as a High School mistress. O parental ambitions 
and illusions! What a crash there would be when she told 
her awful news. Impossible to give the details of that last 
little binge with the boys when certainly she had drunk too 
many cocktails, broken through a college window after 
hours, and trampled on Beatrice Tuck's blobby nose. Im¬ 
possible to justify the hilarious adventures of youth to a 
mother who was very strict on the smaller proprieties and 
to an unpractical, other-worldly father who lived continu- 

57 


58 Heirs Apparent 

ally in the presence of God, who looked at life with the 
eyes of a smiling mystic, and exalted womanhood by his 
adoration of the Virgin Mother. 

Audrey refused in her soul to admit that she should have 
done otherwise than as she did. She had done nothing 
mean, nothing beastly, nothing dishonourable. She had 
merely grabbed at the fun of life with both hands and 
enjoyed natural liberty with an orgy of laughter. The boys 
and girls had given her a good time. The boys especially 
had been frightfully good to her and all that was decent. 
It was true that Clatworthy had been rather inclined to go 
off the deep end and she had had to restrain his over pas¬ 
sionate advances and outrageous sense of humour. Some 
episodes with that young man had been embarrassing, she 
was bound to admit, but harmless and entertaining. There 
was nothing base about Johnny Clatworthy. As for Julian 
Perryam, the very angels of heaven would have been edified 
by his correct behaviour. He had the quiet courtesy of one 
of Arthur’s knights, the purity of St. Louis of France. 
That evening when she had offered him her cheek in the 
White Hart Inn, he had kissed her with almost ridiculous 
indifference. She ought not to have done that perhaps! 
But after all, why not be simple and friendly and natural? 
She had wanted that kiss. It was a good touch to the end 
of a perfect day, and he looked so handsome and brotherly 
and boyish standing there fumbling in the knapsack for her 
pyjamas. She gave a little gulp of laughter at the reminis¬ 
cence and then wondered again how she could possibly 
explain these things to her father and mother. There would 
be a dreadful row. 

The open taxi, which was an imported Ford, was driven 
by young Fred Hibbard, who had once sung in the choir 
with her and grinned at her attempts to teach Old Testa¬ 
ment history in the Sunday School. She sat next to him 
on the front seat and chatted a little, after remarking on 
the glorious clumps of gold where the gorse was like a 
miracle. 

“Any local news, Fred?” 

He smiled shyly, with his gaze on the road. 


Heirs Apparent 59 

“Not much, Miss. Lord Pervical has put the old Hall 
up for sale. Can’t stand the taxes and all that.” 

“That’s rotten! All the old estates are going. England’s 
coming down in the world.” 

“Looks like it. And Colonel Mont is breaking up his 
park for building lots. Tearing down the trees something 
frightful. Spoiling the country side.” 

“What a ghastly shame! I’d like to shoot people who 
cut down trees like that!” 

“I suppose they want the money. Times are hard for 
the gentry just now. Never be the same again in my 
opinion. The war has to be paid for. Pity it was ever 
started. They won’t get me again.” 

Audrey laughed. “Too late to go back on ,that, Fred. 
Seen my father lately?” 

“Yes. Took him to Guildford the other day to sell some 
more of his books. A rare stock of ’em he must have. 
There’s nothing he doesn’t know, I daresay.” 

“Just a few things,” said Audrey. “I’m one of them.” 

“I see your brother’s home again. Lost his job, so they 
say at the Onslow Arms.” 

“What! Out of a job again? That’s perfectly awful!” 

Audrey laughed rather ruefully. If Frank had got the 
sack from the Bank it would make things more difficult 
for her. Two black sheep in one flock were rather too 
many! Poor old Dad! He would be fearfully worried 
and become more mystical than ever. And Mother would 
fret and fuss at having the boy hanging about again. 
Frank was certainly the limit. She had never believed he 
would stick it out in the Bank. He hated office work like 
poison. And who could expect otherwise of a boy who 
had been a Wing Commander and flown over German bat¬ 
tlefields before he was nineteen, and played tricks in the 
sky like a young Mercury? A Bank! With caged wings. 
He was never happy unless he was out of doors, sloping 
about with tramps and village boys, consorting with gipsies, 
yarning in the bar parlours of country inns, and making 
queer friends anywhere he could find them between Surrey 
and the Sussex Downs. 


60 Heirs Apparent 

“Well, good afternoon, Fred, and here’s something for 
yourself.” 

Audrey braced herself for coming troubles, and walked 
bravely up the weed grown path to the square-built 
Georgian house with a stone portico and two pillars with 
crumbling plaster which was her father’s vicarage. She 
had lived here for most of her life since her father had been 
a curate in a London slum which she remembered vaguely 
as a place of brightly lighted shops, clanging tram-cars, 
shouting costers, and large gin palaces outside which frowsy 
women gathered with their perambulators. That was Wal¬ 
worth, to which her father looked back as an earthly Para¬ 
dise because of the work he had done there in “soul saving.” 
He deplored his lack of opportunities among the week-end 
cottages and golf bungalows of this Surrey village. 

“The villa plot to sow and reap, to act the villa lie. 

Beset with villa fears to live, midst villa dreams to die l” 

The hall door was open as usual, and one of her father’s 
old black hats hung on the pegs inside the passage. But 
she knew he was out by the absence of his blackthorn stick 
from the umbrella stand. One of Frank’s caps was there, 
and by a cigarette end lying on the worn oilcloth she knew 
that her brother was about. How shabby everything 
looked! How poverty-stricken, after the polished floors 
and solid comfort of Somerville! Though it was May and 
the sun was shining again after the morning rain, the old 
winter curtains draped the windows—a dark and gloomy 
green—and the house smelt damp, like a graveyard, Audrey 
thought, with spirits that suddenly sank to zero. But after 
flinging her blue hat on a hall chair, and pushing her hair 
back from her forehead, she called out with deliberate 
cheerfulness: 

“Hulloa, everybody! Who’s at home?” 

The little maid, a girl of sixteen whom Mrs. Nye had 
engaged for economy’s sake on low wages in return for 
training, opened the kitchen door with a startled look. 

“Good gricious, Miss Audrey! You back?” 

“Back for good, Lizzie. Where are they all?” 


Heirs Apparent 61 

“The master’s round at church,” said the girl. “And 
mistress is talking in the drawing-room with Miss Raven, 
and Master Frank”— here she gave a little giggle—“is 
oiling his motor-bike in the back garden.” 

Audrey shuddered at the thought of Miss Raven in the 
drawing-room and made a dart for the back door with a 
little low whistle to her brother. 

Frank was sitting on an upturned wheelbarrow by the 
greenhouse, in a pair of khaki breeches, much oil-stained, 
and an old blue shirt, open at the front. He was smoking 
a cigarette and regarding the disintegrated portions of an 
ancient “Indian.” An old wire-haired terrier lay in an 
attitude of couchant regardant. This brother of Audrey’s 
was a reddish haired fellow with a square cut face and 
whimsical mouth, and soft brown eyes like a young 
deer’s. 

“Hullo, kid!” he said, without much surprise. “What’s 
the matter with you?” 

Audrey took one of his cigarettes and tousled his hair a 
little. 

“Everything’s the matter! I’ve been sent down from 
Somerville for disorderly behaviour!” 

She gave a little squeal of laughter, but with a nervous 
note in it. 

“Good for you,” said Frank calmly. “Another rebel in 
the family. Won’t our parents be pleased?” 

“I hear you’ve chucked the Bank, old boy. What the 
dickens will you do now?” 

“The Bank chucked me,” corrected her brother. “I don’t 
blame them at all. I made a most elaborate mess of their 
books, and the end came when I drew a Sopwith Scout, 
1918 type, on the inside cover of my ledger. Pure absent- 
mindedness, as the governor would say.” 

“Things are approaching a blood-curdling crisis,” said 
Audrey. 

They reached the crisis after the departure of Miss Raven 
whose big boots made a scrunching noise down the gravel, 
so conveying the news of her exit to Audrey’s quick ears, 
Mrs. Nye started up with a little cry, not of pleasure, but 



62 Heirs Apparent 

of pained surprise, when Audrey made a rapid appearance 
in the drawing-room with a cheery greeting and a plea for 
tea. 

“Audrey! What in the world brings you back? And 
what is this dreadful scandal I hear from Miss Raven ?” 

Mrs. Nye was a delicate lady, who ought to have been 
dressed in lavender silk with a lace cap, but wore instead 
a blue serge coat and skirt and a little black hat. Twenty- 
three years as a clergyman’s wife in difficult parishes—she 
remembered with something like terror the squalor of that 
Walworth parish—had made her white-haired before her 
time and had given her a look of perpetual worry. She 
was very popular with other clergymen’s wives because of 
her untiring energy in the cause of the Girls’ Friendly So¬ 
ciety and her unerring sense of tact with the parishioners. 
She had trained large numbers of young girls as domestic 
servants who were quite a boon to the big houses in Surrey 
where they took good places as parlour maids until they 
got into trouble with the local shop-boys, and she still 
found time to maintain a regular correspondence with old 
school friends, to whom she quoted passages from the let¬ 
ters of Madame de Sevigne, the discourses of Fenelon, 
the poems of Ella Wheeler Wilcox, and other works which 
had developed her moral character and sense of duty at the 
very select school for young ladies in Clapham Park where 
she had been one of the favourite girls. Audrey acknowl¬ 
edged in her generous moments that her mother was as near 
perfection as any woman could be while belonging to this 
wicked world, but in moments of impatience she had gone 
as far as blaming God because she was born with a mother 
who was distressed at the least untidiness, shocked at the 
smallest impropriety, and alarmed at the first hint of that 
natural depravity which even as a child had lured Audrey 
into dangerous, joyous, and devilish adventures. 

Audrey’s skill in tactics took advantage instantly of her 
mother’s reference to Miss Raven. 

She gave ground which was quite untenable and covered 
her weak position by a bold attack upon the enemy’s posi¬ 
tion. 

“I’ve been sent down, Mother, for a somewhat injudicious 


Heirs Apparent 63 

rag. But what it has to do with that cat Miss Raven I fail 
utterly to see. Another dreadful scandal, eh? Why, the 
woman would sniff a prehistoric scandal in the mummy 
room at the British Museum! She’s a pest to the neigh¬ 
bourhood. She ought to be suppressed with poison gas or 
something!” 

At ordinary times Mrs. Nye would have been lured off 
the main track by this somewhat violent assault upon one 
of the most energetic helpers in the parish. But Audrey 
perceived instinctively that in this case she could not obtain 
that argumentative relief. 

“My dear,” said Mrs. Nye, “it’s a most terrible shock that 
you have been sent down.” 

“I thought it would be,” said Audrey, helping herself to 
tea. 

“You know how we have stinted and scraped to keep 
you at the University—” 

“Yes,” said Audrey. “And I notice it’s the same old 
bread and scrape for tea!” 

“Your poor father has even denied himself tobacco for 
your sake.” 

“Poor old Daddy!” said Audrey, attacking the cake. 

Mrs. Nye looked at her daughter with timid eyes. 

“Audrey, there’s something far more dreadful I want to 
speak about. Something I must ask you—” 

“Ask anything you like, mother dear,” said Audrey pa¬ 
tiently. She racked her mind, as Julian had done, for any 
sin which might have poked up its ugly little head in the 
light of day. There was that episode with Johnny Clat- 
worthy. No, foolish as it had been, there was nothing in 
it. Absolutely nothing. Beatrice Tuck’s expansive and 
ridiculous nose? Well, there was nothing very dreadful in 
having trodden on it. It might improve it. Too many 
cocktails ? Well, of course it was a bad habit, and she had 
certainly been rather merry once, but surely mother couldn’t 
have heard of that? 

“My dearest child,” said Mrs. Nye, in an almost shame¬ 
faced way, “I hate to put this question to you, but I feel 
that I should be hiding my head in the sand like an ostrich 
if I didn’t face the truth whatever it may be.” 


64 Heirs Apparent 

The idea of her mother hiding her head in the sand like 
an ostrich had a curiously hysterical effect upon Audrey, 
and she laughed with ripples of mirth which she tried to 
check when she saw her mother’s eyes fill with tears. 

“My wild Audrey!” said Mrs. Nye. “I pray God to 
protect you from your own love of adventure, your sense 
of fun! It’s so dangerous. It leads young girls into so 
many temptations. I tremble to think that what Miss Raven 
suggests may contain even a grain of truth.” 

“What on earth does the creature suggest ?” asked Audrey 
with impatient enquiry. 

“She says that she met you at a village near Oxford— 
in the company of a young man.” 

“Profoundly true,” said Audrey. “ ‘What about it/ as 
the poet says?” 

“You actually contemplated walking to London to¬ 
gether—” 

“It didn’t come off,” said Audrey. “My ankle gave 
out.” 

“Miss Raven tells me she met a gentleman named Major 
Iffield at Victoria station, who mentioned that he had seen 
you both at Henley. Audrey! My dear child! Have you 
gone mad or something? I implore you to tell me what 
has happened—what you have been doing with that young 
man.” 

Audrey did not answer the question in a direct way. She 
drew her brown eyebrows together and hoped “devoutly,” 
she said, but with suppressed ferocity, that she might have 
the pleasure of seeing Miss Raven roast at the stake, or boil 
in oil, or hang in chains on Gibbet Hill. She regretted that 
the ducking stool and other methods of popular punish¬ 
ment had been abandoned by the increase of sentimentality 
in the modern mind. As for the facts of the case, she was 
willing for all the world to know that she had walked to 
Henley with a Balliol boy and, if he liked, would walk as 
far as Hell with him. After which outburst of anger and 
oratory Audrey departed to her room, leaving her mother 
a prey to the deepest anxiety. 


X 



there was only cold mutton with rice pudding to follow. 

This was characteristic of Mr. Nye, who was both impul¬ 
sive and absent-minded, in spite of twenty-three years of 
protest and training from the lady whom he had married 
when she was a demure maid with big brown eyes, a rose¬ 
bud mouth, and a strong will of her own. On more than 
one occasion when he had duly announced that he had in¬ 
vited a friend to dinner—“It all adds to the expense, my 
dear/’ Mrs. Nye had said a hundred times—he had for¬ 
gotten all about it and gone off parish-poking, as he called 
the visits to his flock, or had remained in prayer in the 
Lady chapel of his own church, or had gone for a long 
solitary walk so exalted by the beauty of the woods and 
fields and by the mystical joy which came to him in the 
songs of birds, the smell of the earth, and the immanence 
of the Divine Spirit in all living things, that he was hope¬ 
lessly late for the evening meal. 

This evening he appeared a few minutes before supper 
with a young Catholic priest whom Audrey recognised as 
a man she had seen bicycling about the country lanes be¬ 
tween Haslemere and Guildford. Once or twice he had 
smiled at her in a simple friendly way which she had rather 
liked. He was introduced by Mr. Nye as Father Riving- 
ton, and Audrey noticed that when he took his seat at their 
rather bare board he made a little sign of the cross on his 
breast, as though twiddling with his coat button. He had 
an easy, pleasant, boyish manner, and seemed to take at 
once to Frank, who sloped in with the wire-haired terrier 
at his heels, sat at the end of the table rather noisily, and 
surveyed the cold mutton with hostile eyes as though re¬ 
garding an ancient enemy. The two small girls, Julia and 

65 , 


66 Heirs Apparent 

Celia, took their places opposite Audrey, flinging their 
flaxen pigtails over their shoulders and continuing some 
intellectual quarrel on the subject of home lessons. 

“Not so much chatter, you kids/’ said Audrey. “Cheek 
of you to stay up so late. I wasn’t allowed to at your 
age.” 

“No,” said Julia, aged twelve. “But times are changing, 
old dear.” 

It was extremely characteristic of Audrey’s father that 
he did not show the least surprise at her presence and had 
obviously forgotten that she was supposed to be absorbing 
the higher learning as supplied to ladies at Oxford. It 
was not until half way through the meal that he suddenly 
laid down his knife and fork and said, “God bless my soul, 
Audrey, what are you doing here?” 

Mrs. Nye, respecting the proprieties as usual, and wish¬ 
ing to avoid anything like a family discussion before a 
stranger, answered the enquiry by saying that Audrey had 
returned suddenly for certain reasons which were no doubt 
unavoidable. 

“Not unwell, sweetheart?” asked Mr. Nye, rather mysti¬ 
fied by this explanation, and looking anxiously from his 
wife to Audrey. 

“Never better, father. At the top of my form,” answered 
Audrey, ignoring Frank’s indiscreet chuckle, and his un¬ 
disguised wink. 

“Splendid! . . . And as I was saying, my dear sir”— 
this to Father Rivington—“there is not the slightest doubt 
in my mind that modern civilisation is doomed unless 
there’s a quickening of spiritual influence among the 
masses. That’s where the Roman Church has a pull over 
the Anglican. You get more directly into touch with your 
people. I don’t know how it is, but the sacraments, the call 
of the faith itself, especially the devotion to Our Lady, 
perhaps, do away with the necessity of all that parish enter¬ 
tainment, whist drives, bazaar-begging, sermon advertising, 
and vulgar touting, by which so many of my fellow clergy¬ 
men try to allure folk to attend their services.” 

Father Rivington answered politely, and accepted the 


Heirs Apparent 67 

fact that his Church relied on authority and spiritual desire 
rather than on publicity. At the same time he had to con¬ 
fess that he had tried to raise a bit of money himself to 
pay off the debt on a new church in just those ways which 
Mr. Nye condemned. He laughed at this admission in a 
hearty boyish way, and then, as though wishing to avoid 
ecclesiastical small talk at the supper table, turned to Frank 
and asked if he had been in the war. 

“I had a glimpse of it,” said Frank. 

“Infantry ?” 

“Flying.” 

It appeared that Father Rivington had been a military 
chaplain and he and Frank were soon discussing places they 
knew in France and Flanders, and especially, Audrey no¬ 
ticed, certain villages behind the lines where they had 
obtained good food served by girls named Suzanne, Mar¬ 
guerite, Yvonne, and Berthe. 

“Good old days,” said Frank, lifting a glass of cold 
water as though pledging a toast. “Here’s to the next jolly 
old war!” 

Father Rivington laughed heartily, but entirely disap¬ 
proved of the sentiment. 

“I hope there aren’t many like you. . . . I’m a pacifist 
and a League of Nations man, out and out.” 

“Oh, Lord!” said Frank. “That tosh?” 

Mr. Nye intervened in the argument that followed when 
Frank reiterated his bloodthirsty desire for another Arma¬ 
geddon which he thought would relieve the strain of peace. 

“My son is feeling a bit unsettled still. Can’t find the 
right career. Eh, Frank?” 

“Not in a city Bank,” said Frank. “I’d rather be riddled 
with machine gun bullets in a bloody little scrap.” 

“Hush, my dear,” said Mrs. Nye. “I wish you young 
people wouldn’t be so violent in your expressions. Espe¬ 
cially in the presence of a guest.” 

“He doesn’t mind,” growled Frank, with a whimsical 
glance at the young priest. “He’s been a padre at the front. 
He’s used to violent expressions, of a sanguinary colour.” 

“Frank, I beg of you!” 


68 Heirs Apparent 

Father Rivington laughed again, in his high, ringing way. 

“I’m not easily shocked, Mrs. Nye. In fact my own lan¬ 
guage sometimes, in moments of irritation, is of a most 
military character.” 

“It’s the spirit of a man that counts,” said Mr. Nye. 
“Give me a man with love in his heart, and he can swear 
like a trooper as far as I’m concerned. Why, I knew a 
coster once—a regular saint—with every other word an 
oath. One of the most Christlike men.” 

“John dear, your tolerance is sometimes extraordinary.” 

“Where Love is, there God is also,” said Mr. Nye 
heartily. 

Audrey smiled to herself, and then shared her smile with 
Frank when she caught his eye. The dear old Dad was 
incurable as a cheerful mystic. How he managed to retain 
his faith was a mystery to them, in the face of so many 
knocks and disillusions. Not even their irreverence and 
scepticism had shaken his simple faith in the miracles of 
the Old Testament, including Jonah in the whale’s belly, 
Balaam’s ass, and the stopping of the sun in favour of 
Joshua. Not all their patient or impatient allusions to the 
destructive criticism as developed by Oxford under¬ 
graduates with the help of Matthew Arnold, Anatole 
France, and H. G. Wells, could alter his profound belief in 
the efficacy of prayer, and in the communion of saints. He 
was an absolute mediaevalist. However, for once in a way 
they were grateful for this. It avoided the necessity of 
painful explanations and further worry in Audrey’s case, 
because Mr. Nye retired into his study for private conver¬ 
sation with Father Rivington—something to do with the 
parish, no doubt—and remained there until nearly bedtime. 
This was accepted as providential by Frank, who had ar¬ 
ranged to meet a friend at the Wheatsheaf and strolled out 
of the house immediately after supper for that purpose— 
after a little tug at Julia’s pigtail and a friendly tweak of 
Celia’s nose and a noisy scuffle in the hall. 

Unfortunately for Audrey her mother was a lady who 
never delegated her duties to servants unless under her 
immediate supervision, and this led to a discovery which 


Heirs Apparent 69 

Audrey considered perfectly ridiculous when Mrs. Nye 
came downstairs after a prolonged absence with an air of 
extreme uneasiness, approaching dismay. 

“Audrey, dear, I've been looking for your luggage to 
unpack. You don’t seem to have brought a thing with 
you!” 

“No, mother,” said Audrey, looking up from the pages 
of Punch. “It’s all being sent on from Somerville.” 

“But your night things, dearest? How did you manage 
last night?” 

“Oh, Lord, yes!” said Audrey. “I forgot. Julian Per- 
ryam shoved them into his knapsack. I left them with 
him.” 

A faint flush crept into the pale cheeks of Mrs. Nye, and 
there was a look of something like terror in her tired eyes. 

“Audrey, have you no shame?” 

“Not much, mother dear. It’s an old-fashioned habit. 
But why?” 

“Your night things in a young man’s bag!” said Mrs. 
Nye breathlessly. 

“There was plenty of room in it,” said Audrey. 

“A young man with whom you stayed in a country hotel! 
This is beyond words. I shall have to tell your poor father. 
I am horrified—terror-striken.” 

“Look here, mother,” said Audrey with a savage little 
laugh, “please spare yourself all such ridiculous horrors and 
terrors. They make me rather tired. They belong to the 
High School in Clapham Park thirty years ago, and not to 
Somerville and the twentieth century. Tell father by all 
means. He has far too much trust in me to worry his head 
about it. And meanwhile I’m off to bed. I can’t stand all 
this morbid suspicion any longer.” 

She took Punch with her and went past her mother with 
an angry light in her eyes, for the second time that day. 

It was just about the time when Julian shouted out to 
his mother, “For heaven’s sake, give us credit for a little 
decency and self-respect!” 


XI 


JDREY was reading in bed, having switched off her 



light when she heard her mother going up the cor¬ 
ridor—and switched it on again when she heard her 
mother’s bedroom door safely shut. By that subterfuge she 
avoided a moral protest against the waste of electric light, 
followed by the usual rebuke: “How often have I begged 
you not to read in bed, Audrey dearest? You never 
respect the slightest word I say. And those abominable 
novels. . . .” 

She was startled later by a tap at the door and her 
father’s voice. 

“Still awake, Audrey? Can I have a word with you?” 

“A million words, father. Come in.” 

Mr. Nye came in and closed the door quietly. 

“I don’t want to keep you awake, Kiddy,” he said, “but 
your mother’s greatly distressed about you.” 

“Yes,” said Audrey. “She’s making a habit of it.” 

Mr. Nye smiled, and then looked serious again. “I know. 
But I confess I’m rather alarmed by what she tells me this 
time. In fact I may say I’m scared to death, my dear.” 

“Oh, rats, father!” 

“Not altogether rats,” said Mr. Nye, mildly. “What on 
earth is all this about your gadding about the countryside 
with a young man—after being sent down from Somerville? 
The last fact is enough to turn my hair grey, on top of so 
much other worry with Frank and all that. A most dread¬ 
ful disappointment. But it pales into insignificance before 
the thought that you’ve been falling into bad ways. Play¬ 
ing with fire! My darling little Audrey! I hope to 


God—” 


Audrey sat up in bed and flung the two plaits into which 
she had tied her hair—reminiscent of Julia and Celia with 
their pigtails—over her shoulders with an impatient ges¬ 
ture. 


70 


Heirs Apparent 71 

“My dear Daddy, for Heaven’s sake don’t be parsonical 
with me. Mother’s bad enough, and it’s no good arguing 
with her, because she’s encrusted in early Victorian pro¬ 
priety. But I do expect more understanding from you. 
More sense of humour. Surely you know me well enough 
to be assured that I can take care of myself!” 

“I’ve always hoped so,” said Mr. Nye. “Subject to the 
usual limitations of human nature and a wild spirit, my 
dear. But you must admit it’s not discreet, to say the least 
of it, to wander about the countryside with a young fellow 
who may be a dissolute scoundrel for all I know.” 

“Well, let me inform you,” said Audrey smiling, “that 
he’s not a dissolute scoundrel, but a most charming youth, 
sans peur et sans reproche!” 

“And nothing serious has happened between you? You 
are still my little pure and innocent flower?” 

Audrey laughed outright at this simple question. 

“I’m all right, father. Unspotted as the lily and all that.” 

“Thank God!” said Mr. Nye, with an air of intense relief. 

“But not as innocent as a blue-eyed doll, father! We’re 
brought up in a different code from the young people of 
your early days, thank goodness! If you haven’t found 
that out yet you must go about the world with your eyes 
shut.” 

Mr. Nye thrust a hand through his curly chestnut hair 
and looked absurdly young to be Audrey’s father. 

“I go about the world astonished, shocked, and terrified, 
by its sinfulness, its irreligion, and its defiance of God,” 
he said, not gloomily, but as an alarming fact. “It was the 
war that did it. It broke down all laws. It liberated primi¬ 
tive instincts. It smashed the old barriers of restraint im¬ 
posed by the social code if not by the Christian faith.” 

“A jolly good thing too,” said Audrey with the calm 
assurance of youth. “It has liberated human nature which 
was shut up in artificial conventions and blinded by blinkers. 
We’re looking at the truth of things without fear. We’re 
not going to let the joy of life be spoilt by silly old restric¬ 
tions and blue funk. Why, father, you and mother are full 
of quaking terrors—terror of God, terror of life, terror of 


72 Heirs Apparent 

public opinion, terror of laughter, terror of youth. It must 
be miserable for you.” 

Mr. Nye laughed with a groan in his voice. 

“Quite true! I’m a bit of a coward. But it’s because I’ve 
seen the fearful dangers of the world around—and in my 
own heart. The old words have not lost their truth, my 
dear. 'The devil goes about like a roaring lion seeking 
whom he may devour.’ 'The heart of man is deceitful 
above all things and desperately wicked.’ ” 

“Not yours, Dad. You’re one of the saints, alas. As 
for the old devil, I say pooh to him. Also bah! I don’t 
believe in him. He’s a silly old myth belonging to the dark 
of the mind.” 

Mr. Nye shook his head. 

“I’ve no difficulty whatever in believing in only one devil. 
Look at the world to-day. Look at Europe—plagued by all 
the devils of hate, greed, lies, immorality, cruelty. And I 
have only to look in my own heart. You say I’m a saint. 
Why, my dear child, I’m a pest-house of iniquity!” 

He made this assertion with a kind of cheerful emphasis. 

Audrey laughed gaily, looking at his ascetic face, and 
his troubled boyish eyes. 

“Do you imagine I don’t know what temptation is?” he 
asked. “Don’t forget that a young clergyman with any pre¬ 
tensions to good looks is surrounded by admiring women 
and that if he’s in the least degree susceptible he’s in con¬ 
stant danger. As a young man, in spite of your dear 
mother, I had some very narrow escapes, old kid. Hair¬ 
breadth escapes! I tremble at the thought of them.” 

Audrey regarded him with considerable enjoyment. 

“I bet mother kept a sharp eye on you! And don’t put 
it all down to the admiring females, father. In spite of 
your sanctity and your middle age, you’re a terrific flirt, 
even now. How’s Mrs. Middleton getting on? Have you 
been to hold her hand lately and listen to her spiritual 
adventures ?” 

Mr. Nye’s face deepened in colour. 

“Audrey! For goodness’ sake, dear child, don’t jest so 
lightly about things like that! Mrs. Middleton is a very 


Heirs Apparent 73 

charming woman, but as a matter of fact Fve given up 
calling on her. One can’t be too careful, I acknowledge, 
at whatever time of life.” 

“Then there’s Mrs. Harbord,” said Audrey slyly. 
“Mother was rather worried about that little lady! And 
no blame to her either.” 

“Hush!” said Mr. Nye, greatly embarrassed. “I tried 
to help the poor lady after her divorce. I pointed out her 
sinfulness—frankly and kindly—but she became a perfect 
nuisance to me with her coy seductive ways.” 

“Oh, father!” said Audrey with mock gravity. “Playing 
with fire! And you dare to lecture me!” 

He swept her teasing suggestions away with a sudden 
gesture of impatience. 

“Joking apart, old girl, it’s because I’ve had some expe¬ 
rience of these things—my own weakness, as I tell you 
frankly—that I tremble for you sometimes, and feel very 
much afraid. You young people of to-day take enormous 
risks, gaily, in a spirit of adventure, without a glance or 
thought for the consequences. My dear, you’re not immune 
from danger. The adventure ends disastrously sometimes 
—many times. As a clergyman—if my lips were not sealed 
—I could tell you dreadful stories—dreadful—of young 
boys and girls in this very neighbourhood. Ruined lives. 
Marriages in a hurry. Poor little broken hearts that only 
God Himself can mend again, as certainly He will here¬ 
after, with infinite pity.” 

“Servant girls,” said Audrey. “Poor little country sluts 
who have never had their eyes opened.” 

“No,” said Mr. Nye gravely. “Girls like you, Audrey. 
Girls from good families.” 

“Rotters,” protested Audrey. “Dirty little decadents.” 

“Girls like you, Audrey,” said Mr. Nye again. “As 
pretty as you. Once as joyous as you.” 

He sat on the side of her bed and took her hand and 
put it to his lips. 

“Life is full of terrors,” he said. “You’re quite right, 
my dear. Middle aged folk, like your mother and me, have 
no sense of security in our hearts. We walk with fear 


74 Heirs Apparent 

because of you young people—so rebellious, so daring, so 
resentful of advice and restraint. Look at Frank. Out of 
a job again. A haunter of public houses.” 

“Frank’s all right,” said Audrey, loyal to her brother. 
“Perfectly normal and healthy.” 

“He shirks work,” said Mr. Nye. “What’s going to 
become of him? Does he expect me to keep him for ever, 
eating the bread of idleness? It’s a disgrace in the village, 
for one thing. ‘Look at the parson’s son,’ they say, ‘hang¬ 
ing about at a loose end again. A pity he wasn’t better 
taught!’ That’s not pleasant for me. And God knows I’ve 
been patient with him and enormously tolerant.” 

“He’ll find the right kind of job one of these days,” said 
Audrey. “After all, he did serve his country in time of war 
and help to save little old England. He deserves time to 
look around.” 

Mr. Nye sighed and rumpled his curly hair again. 

“Time’s getting on. It’s four years since the war ended.” 

“Well, it’s not easy to get a job that’s any good,” said 
Audrey. “Meanwhile this old house is large enough to give 
him free lodging while he looks about.” 

Mr. Nye kissed the blue bow on one of her plaits. 

“I can’t afford to keep idle sons or idle daughters. 
You’re my latest source of anxiety, Audrey. You know 
how we economised to send you to Somerville on the high 
road to a brilliant career which might have enabled you to 
pay back a little. Now that hope’s dashed.” 

“I’m saving you money,” said Audrey, audaciously. 
“Somerville was beastly expensive.” 

Mr. Nye glanced at her doubtfully. 

“One of these days,” he said, “you and Frank will have 
to keep your poor mother. Perhaps sooner than you 
expect!” 

There was a look of mystery in his eyes. 

Audrey smiled rather callously. 

“Now, father, don’t you ask me to believe you feel the 
hand of death on you, or any sob-stuff of that kind. You 
know the doctor examined you the other day and said you 
were as fit as a fiddle.” 


Heirs Apparent 75 

“It’s not that,” said Mr. Nye, with suppressed excite¬ 
ment. “It’s something else which I’m afraid will make us 
all very, very poor. I didn’t want to tell you just yet, and 
I must ask you to say nothing whatever to mother.” 

Audrey stared at him with a comical look. 

“Good gracious! You’ve not been gambling at Bridge 
or betting on the three-thirty, or anything like that, have 
you, father?” 

A humorous smile played round his mouth and he shook 
his head. 

“That’s not one of my little vices. A mug’s game, as 
they used to say in Walworth.” 

“And you haven’t been getting into debt over some 
wicked woman, greedy for pearl necklaces and creme de 
menthe? Father, I’ll disown you for ever if you’ve been 
leading a double life!” 

“In a way I have,” he said. “A double life! But not 
according to the flesh. A clergyman of the Church of Eng¬ 
land, trying to do his duty faithfully, loyally, but with his 
heart and faith elsewhere.” 

Audrey for the first time began to take him seriously. 
She saw that he was deeply moved by some secret and 
disturbing thought, and that his eyes were shining with a 
kind of interior light. 

“Good Lord, father, you haven’t become an infidel like 
me? That would be very awkward.” 

“Not an infidel,” said Mr. Nye, with a queer boyish 
laugh. “A more perfect faith, more intense, more satis¬ 
fying.” 

“Not a Spiritualist, or a Christian Scientist, I hope? 
There’s rather a spooky look about you, Dad, now I come 
to look at you. I believe you’ve been dabbling in black 
magic! It’s that woman, Mrs. Harbord, with her seances 
and Oliver Lodge stuff.” 

Mr. Nye shook his head and dismissed all such ideas 
with a wave of his hand. 

“Audrey, my dear, I’m going to tell you a great secret. 
A most joyous secret, though it will lead to suffering for 
all of us, I’m afraid, and especially for your dear mother. 


76 Heirs Apparent 

I’m going to become a Catholic and join the only true 
Church. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time. I 
can hesitate no longer. To-night I put myself in the hands 
of Father Rivington.” 

“Good God!” said Audrey. “That puts the lid on every¬ 
thing. Do you mean to say you’re going to chuck up your 
living?” 

“I must, my dear. It’s God’s will.” 

“It’s a damned outrage,” said Audrey. “It will kill 
mother. Father, I think you’ve gone dotty or something. 
It’s that absurd young priest with his hyena laugh and 
mask of frank simplicity. I expect he’s a Jesuit in dis¬ 
guise !” 

“He’s not a Jesuit,” said Mr. Nye, “and not in disguise. 
And it’s nothing much to do with him. The idea has been 
growing in my mind ever since the war. Suddenly I saw 
the flaming truth of it in a little wood where I was walk¬ 
ing the other day. A fairy glade. You know that avenue 
of beeches near Effingham? Like the aisle of a cathedral, 
but all green with the new leaves. It came upon me like 
a great illumination as I was looking at the bluebells with 
their wonderful colour, like Our Lady’s gown. ‘What the 
world wants is faith,’ I was saying, and then suddenly I 
knew that I had never had the real faith but only a com¬ 
promise in a kind of half-way house. The great Catholic 
faith, with the authority of Peter, the miracles of all the 
saints, the love and pity of the Virgin Mother, the presence 
of Christ walking by one’s side, so comradely—” 

“Oh, shut up, father,” said Audrey. “What absolute rot 
you do talk!” 

“It’s' God’s truth, little one,” said her father. “And I 
want you to be brave about it and help your mother to bear 
it. When I give up my living I shall have to get some 
work to do, and it’s not going to be easy at first. That’s 
why I want you and Frank—” 

Audrey gave a hysterical laugh. 

“Three out-of-work people in one family! I get sent 
down from Oxford, Frank gets the sack from the Bank, 
and you chuck the Church! If that isn’t the exaggerated 


Heirs Apparent 77 

limit. . . . Well, there’s always the workhouse, of course.” 

After that laughing outburst she sat up straight in bed 
and struck her hands on the coverlet. 

‘'Father, for goodness’ sake pull yourself together, old 
dear. You can’t do this thing! It’s too monstrously 
absurd. It’s too farcical and outrageous even for a 
mediaevalist like you—a dreamer, and idealist, and absent- 
minded beggar. Think what it will mean to all of us, and 
especially to mother. Grinding poverty. Horrible squa¬ 
lor. The loss of all your old friends. But poverty above 
all and worst of all.” 

“My lady Poverty!” said Mr. Nye. “We’ll pay our 
homage to her like St. Francis of Assisi.” 

“When are you going to tell mother?” asked Audrey 
coldly. 

“Not just yet. Not for a few days. I trust you to keep 
my secret, Kiddy.” 

“I shan’t blab,” said Audrey. “But I warn you, Dad, 
that if you don’t get back to common sense I shan’t take it 
lying down.” 

“I look to your comradeship, girlie. You and I have 
always been good pals. The best of pals. Like two sweet¬ 
hearts, you and I.” 

This appeal seemed to touch a sensitive chord in Audrey’s 
heart. 

“Oh, father!” she cried. “For goodness’ sake—” 

She did not finish her sentence but put her face down 
on the pillow and burst into tears. 

“My dear, my dear!” said Mr. Nye. 

He bent over and kissed her wet cheek and then tip-toed 
out of the room. 


XII 


J ULIAN was seeking inspiration for a drama in blank 
verse on the subject of England after the Napoleonic 
Wars, later than Hardy's “Dynasts." He was going to use 
that as a basis for a satirical commentary on England after 
the European War—at least as a kind of historical com¬ 
parison, with modern allusions. It was to be rather bitter, 
realistic and strong. Above all strong, with no pandering 
to sentiment except in certain lyrics which he would put in 
here and there dealing with the beauty of nature. Of 
course there would have to be a love interest, which was, 
he supposed, an absurd necessity, but he would subordinate 
that to the general drama of English life, with its unem¬ 
ployment, its miserable state of Labour, the beginning of 
the end of industrialism, and the new claims to Liberty. . . . 

A great idea, but very difficult. It wanted a lot of think¬ 
ing out after he had put down the general scheme on paper. 
He thought it out in long walks over Box Hill which was 
very quiet on a week-day though utterly useless as a place 
of inspiration on Saturdays and Sundays when its slopes 
were crowded with picnic parties who had come by motor 
bus or on motor bikes with side-cars from the London 
suburbs. It was difficult to work in the garden, though it 
was six acres in size with many pleasant nooks and sun 
swept lawns where he lay back in a deck chair with a note¬ 
book on his knees, and a Panama hat tilted over his eyes. 
His family seemed to regard his literary efforts with min¬ 
gled amusement and suspicion. At least that was Janet's 
attitude. She frankly accused him of using the idea as a 
cloak for laziness and once or twice he was unlucky in 
being found fast asleep by her when inspiration was diffi¬ 
cult and the sun warm. At other times she would come 
and sit by his side reading some ridiculous and rather in¬ 
decent novel and look up now and again to say, “You don't 
seem to be getting on very fast, old boy!" 

78 


Heirs Apparent 79 

It was no wonder he lost his temper and said, “How the 
devil can I get on at all when you persist in interrupting 
my thoughts? Run away and play, little girl!” 

His mother interrupted him with even greater levity, and 
accused him of being “unsociable” because he refused to 
go out to tea with her to neighbour’s houses. She did not 
seem to take his literary efforts very seriously. 

“You can’t stick in the old garden all day, sonny! It’ll 
do you good to see some nice people now and then.” 

He knew those nice people! They hadn’t an idea beyond 
the servant problem and the abomination of the income tax, 
and the high cost of living. 

Then there was Grandfather! With an almost devilish 
ingenuity, as though tracking down a criminal, he would 
come searching for Julian wherever he hid himself, behind 
a sheltering hedge, or in a distant summer house. Julian, 
jotting down a word here and there in his note-book, would 
hear his stick tapping down the garden path, and the old 
man’s wheezing breath, before he appeared in his grey 
frock coat and trousers with a glint of triumph in his pierc¬ 
ing old eyes at having found his quarry. 

“Ah, there you are, Julian! I’ve been looking for you. 
They tell me you’re writing a book. If I were you, I 
wouldn’t, young man. There are too many books already, 
and mostly rubbish, nowadays.” 

Then he would sit down on a garden seat or a bank of 
grass with his thin old knees sharply outlined through his 
neatly pressed trousers, and make gloomy and querulous 
remarks. 

“Your father was a fool to bring you up in luxury. Much 
better if you’d been made a boy clerk in a good business 
or the Civil Service. More honest. This is all show and 
sham, this great house and garden built up on cheap trash. 
No comfort in it, with servants always spying about, inter¬ 
fering. Servants! Your grandmother did her own cook¬ 
ing. A good woman, Julian, dear boy! Not like these 
modern females with their soft ways and loose notions. 
And look at all the unemployment, and Labour unrest and 
Bolshevism. What’s the use of it? Laziness! Greed and 


80 Heirs Apparent 

grab! No discipline. No respect. Take your own case. 
This book of yours. That’s not work! Lying about a 
garden dreaming nonsense. Your father’s too weak, that’s 
what it is. I’ve told him so, a thousand times. Spare the 
rod, spoil the child. Good old words out of the good old 
Book. That sister of yours is turning out a young hussy, 
with cigarette smoking, and bare arms, and impudent ways 
with her old Grandfather. It’s only yesterday I used to 
nurse her in my arms and stroke her golden curls, as soft 
as silk!—and tell her fairy stories. Now she’s disrespect¬ 
ful ! Your mother’s fault, I dare say. She's all for society 
now, and forgetful of old friends. She has no fixed prin¬ 
ciples, and precious little morality, though you mustn’t tell 
her I said so. What’s that book about, young Julian?” 

‘‘Hell!” said Julian, exasperated beyond all patience. 

“Ah,” said the old man, “I'm not surprised. 

Then there was the cuckoo. 

Julian, worrying over his great idea, not getting on with 
it, heard the bird mocking at him. It seemed to have a 
cold in its throat, but all day long called “Cuckoo! Cuckoo!” 
with damnable iteration, until once he flung his note-book 
away, sprang up, and said, “Curse you, you blasted bird!” 
enormously to the amusement of Janet who happened to be 
passing up the pergola. 

He had a sense of being watched by his father, who had 
an exasperating habit of enquiring how he was getting on 
with his work—when he hadn’t even begun the thing. As 
a refuge from all this family interest and vigilance he re¬ 
tired to his room after dinner and took to thinking things 
out at night, smoking many cigarettes. Generally the drift 
of his thoughts wandered away from his drama. He won¬ 
dered what Clatworthy was doing, and whether Stokes 
Prichard had got his Blue, and whether he hadn’t been 
rather a fool to leave Oxford, and what the latest Revues 
were like in London—the new edition of “The Co-Opti¬ 
mists,” for instance. Then he became engrossed in “The 
Forsyte Saga” by Galsworthy and put his drama in blank 
verse on one side while he read it—and it was enormously 
long. 


Heirs Apparent 81 

This made him late for breakfast in the morning and his 
father went off to his office before he was out of bed—an¬ 
other cause of grievance, as he heard from old Mary, who 
brought in his bacon and eggs at half-past ten. 

“Your father's fretting because you're so late up, Master 
Julian. Thinks you must have caught the sleepy sickness or 
some think! ‘Poor dear,' says I, ‘let 'im 'ave 'is sleep out. 
It’s natural for young blood.' " 

“Quite right, Mary," said Julian. “The conservation of 
energy, it’s called, in scientific language.” 

“Oh, well, you always was a one for long words. Always 
put me right when I used to read out Grimm’s Fairy Tales, 
when you was just a nipper.” 

“Any letters, Mary?” 

Yes, there was one from Audrey, a week after her 
return. 

“A love-letter. I’ll be bound,” said old Mary, winking at 
her own image in the silver dish cover. She doted on “Mas¬ 
ter Julian” and thought him the handsomest fellow in the 
world, and indulged her imagination with amorous adven¬ 
tures in which he played the hero's part and wrought havoc 
among young ladies of high rank and enormous wealth. 

Audrey's letter invited him to drive over one day as soon 
as the Metallurgique was restored to health and return her 
pyjamas, hair brushes, tooth brush and bedroom slippers. 

“As long as they remain in your possession [she wrote] I’m in 
danger of scandalous imputations. Their presence in your knap¬ 
sack has already led to domestic trouble of the gravest kind. I beg 
you not to return them by post, for if the parcel happens to break 
open the whole village will be convulsed by the shock of outraged 
propriety. Miss Raven—that hard-faced woman we met at Dor- 
cester—would undoubtedly make a further report to my worried par¬ 
ents whom she has already informed of our comradely tramp. Oh, 
my dear Julian, how difficult it is for people of our years to escape 
from the awful heritage of our pre-war parentage! How splendid 
it will be for the children born of a post-war generation, liberated 
from the evil spell of Victorian and even of Edwardian stuffiness, 
looking at life through open windows of the soul, walking the road 
of adventure without fear of public opinion, and unchallenged in 
perfect freedom of thought going to meet laughter, gaiety and joy! 


82 Heirs Apparent 

You might write me a verse or two on that inspiring theme. Any¬ 
how redeem your promise of coming to see me. I am on the edge 
of a precipice which threatens to engulf my whole family owing to 
the fanaticism of a father who is determined to go off the deep end 
and drag his unfortunate people to the bottomless pit of poverty. 
It’s really an appalling prospect, but so far a dead secret which I 
must ask you to keep unrevealed to a single soul. 

Your sincere friend, 

Audrey Nye. 

“P.S. I had a note from Clatworthy. He resents the imputation 
that he ran your car without oil. Also he announces the glad tidings 
that he has taken rooms in the Albany and proposes to paint London 
purple in the early autumn when he hopes to get a job in the For¬ 
eign Office.” 

Julian decided to walk over to Audrey's place in the after¬ 
noon, and return the pyjamas and other things which had 
been the innocent cause of scandal. They were neatly ar¬ 
ranged in a little bundle on one of the chairs in his bedroom 
—that was his mother's doing, no doubt—and after lunch 
he made a brown paper parcel of them and tucked them un¬ 
der his arm. As luck would have it he met Janet in the hall 
and she regarded the parcel with amusement and curiosity, 
knowing his objection to being “a beast of burden” when 
called upon to go shopping with his mother or sister. 

“Taking the clothes to the wash, old boy?” she asked with 
childish impertinence. 

“Little girls should be seen and not heard,” he answered 
Stiffly. 

Janet received this schoolboy back-chat with the laughing 
contempt it deserved. 

“You're not strong at repartee, Julian, in spite of your Ox¬ 
ford training. And you needn’t try and deceive your inno¬ 
cent sister. You’re going off to that girl Audrey Nye with 
her abandoned underclothing. See what a piercing intelli¬ 
gence I have!” 

Julian regarded her darkly. 

“The number of spies there are in this house would make 
the reputation of Scotland Yard.” 

“Oh, we watch you a little,” said Janet. “Our white- 
headed boy. The hope of the family, and a rising star in 
the literary firmament. Father’s worrying himself into fid- 


Heirs Apparent 83 

dlestrings about you. He thinks you’re idling instead of 
putting in a decent day’s work.” 

Julian flushed angrily. 

“That’s the idea, is it? Why doesn’t he tell me so straight 
out, instead of holding family councils and listening to 
Grandfather’s recollections of his poor but industrious 
youth?” 

Janet was amused by his heated eloquence. 

“Don’t get rattled, Julian. I believe in your moral char¬ 
acter and high intelligence. Trust your little sister I” 

“I can’t say I believe in yours,” he answered rather sav¬ 
agely. “The way you carry on with that poisonous person, 
Cyril Buckland, makes my gorge rise. I warn you he’s only 
playing with you, as he’s played with other girls before he 
ruined them. I know something about his record.” 

Janet became a little pale, and the mocking smile left her 
face. 

“That’s a cad’s thing to say, Julian. I thought you had a 
decent sense of good form.” 

He saw that he had hurt her more sharply than he meant. 

“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to put it so brutally. 
But I warn you to be careful, young lady. That fellow’s a 
rotter. I’ve heard his talk after dinner, among men. It 
isn’t pleasant.” 

“You’re a nasty little liar,” she said sharply. “I advise 
you to leave Cyril and me alone.” 

There was a sign of moisture in her eyes and she was 
white with anger. 

“I’ve no intention of barging in,” said Julian, “but don’t 
say I didn’t warn you. You’re asking for trouble if you 
get too thick with that fellow.” 

“Don’t rely on me,” said Janet very coldly, “when the 
scandal spreads about you and Audrey Nye.” 

“Bosh!” said Julian. “Absolute nonsense!” 

The brother and sister separated in a state of strained re¬ 
lations, and on his walk to Hartland by way of Guildford 
Julian thought bitterly of the astonishing way in which he 
was misunderstood by his family. His father was obvi¬ 
ously fretting because he lay about the garden thinking furi- 


84 Heirs Apparent 

ously, and imagined that that was just slackness. His mother 
resented his disappearances after dinner and accused him of 
being “glum.” Now Janet, looking as innocent as a baby, 
and pretty as a Columbine, quarrelled with him because he 
warned her about going the pace with a man ten years older 
than herself and an habitue of the night clubs in London. 
She flared out like a little tiger cat when he gave her the 
friendliest and most brotherly hint. It was perfectly true that 
he was all for liberty and had no use at all for parental re¬ 
strictions, Mother Grundyism, and the suppression of youth, 
but Janet was rather different from most modern girls, who 
were able to look after themselves. She had been educated 
at a convent school, shielded from the knowledge of evil, 
and had now come out like a bird from a cage, utterly reck¬ 
less as long as she had a good time, and perfectly ignorant 
of every damned thing. At least she looked and talked as 
though she were, but he was beginning to have his doubts 
about it. 

Anyhow, it was really rather beyond the limit—for a girl 
like Janet, though perfectly all right for himself and a girl 
like Audrey—that she should motor home at two in the 
morning after a dance at Murray’s quite alone with Cyril 
Buckland. That was what had happened last night, as he 
knew because he had come down in his dressing-gown to 
find his pipe, after finishing “The Forsyte Saga,” just as 
Cyril’s headlights had flashed round the bend of the drive 
and gleamed through the front windows. 

Janet had certainly looked extraordinarily charming in 
her white dancing frock, and her blue eyes were full of fun 
and laughter. But Julian resented Cyril’s air of proprietor¬ 
ship with her, and the slimy way—there was no other word 
for it—in which he helped her off with her cloak and 
breathed down her neck. He had been drinking whiskey, 
too, as Julian could see by his eyes, and he immediately set 
about getting another from the dining-room cupboard as 
though the place belonged to him. 

“We’ve had a wonderful time,” Janet had said. “Met all 
the beauty chorus of the Gaiety and half the stars of the 
London Revues.” 


Heirs Apparent 85 

“And Janet beat the lot of them,” was Cyril’s remark. 
“She had all the homage of the evening. A fresh little daisy 
in a posy of artificial flowers.” 

“Flatterer!” 

Julian had shown them by his glumness that he didn’t ap¬ 
prove of either Murray’s or Cyril. He had made that pretty 
obvious, and things had breezed up to something like a 
quarrel with Cyril Buckland until his father had come down 
in his dressing gown with a smiling protest against this 
revelry in the small hours, and in spite of his smile, an anx¬ 
ious look in his eyes and a suspicious glance at Cyril. Cyril, 
conscious of Julian’s hostility and Mr. Perryam’s worry, had 
not tarried for more than two whiskeys, and drove away 
again pretty quickly to his father’s house twenty miles away, 
at Hindhead. 

Julian’s father had begun to give out some rather heavy 
platitudes. 

“I wish you young people would keep better hours. God 
knows I’m tolerant and only want your happiness but I 
honestly think this sort of thing is all wrong. Your mother 
and I—” 

Janet had rumpled his hair and protested that a moral 
oration would keep her longer out of bed. 

“I’m as sleepy as a little old owl.” 

So the scene had ended. . . . 

Julian’s mind went over these incidents with a sense of 
worry, and then he thought of his own future with its 
unformed ideals and vague ambitions, as he tramped through 
the little old villages of Shere and Gomshall with their 
thatched roofs and clipped hedges, and stood for a moment 
on the high ground at Newlands Corner to look over the 
wide panorama which stretched away to the Sussex Downs, 
with the faint outline of Beachy Head beyond the farthest 
hills. Not more than twenty-six miles from London, though 
it seemed a world away. The only signs of neighbourhood 
with the great city were the two-seater cars and motor-bikes 
with sidecars which had brought picnic parties to this spot, 
and the paper they strewed about regardless of its despoil¬ 
ing effect, after eating their sandwiches. A boy and a girl 


86 Heirs Apparent 

were lying between a side car and a hedge of May blossom 
in the full glare of sunshine and publicity,—the boy’s head in 
the girl’s lap. 

“Why do these people show such lack of form?” thought 
Julian, with a sense of lofty disapproval which afterwards 
amused him when he came to think of it. After all, Audrey 
had suggested a night in the open air and he had only turned 
down the idea because of its chilliness. That boy and girl 
from some suburb of London were only doing the same kind 
of thing in the daylight and with a defiance of public opinion 
which showed their pluck and commonsense. Probably a 
clerk with a day off and taking a rare chance of sporting 
with Amaryllis—a little shop girl—in the shade. Why not? 
Still they might have gone farther into the thicket! 

Walking on through Clandon village he had To study a 
sign post to find the road leading to Hartland where Au¬ 
drey’s father dispensed religion to old ladies, adoring spin¬ 
sters, and village tradesmen, according to Audrey’s own de¬ 
scription. 

“Extraordinary profession, that of a clergyman!” thought 
Julian. Not a bad existence, if one believed a word of one’s 
own teaching, which was rather much to expect, he thought, 
after a world war which had put Christianity into the cart, to 
say nothing of the challenge of modern science and general 
agnosticism. Still he wasn’t prepared to dogmatise about 
religion or faith of any kind. There might be something in 
it. One of these days he would look into the thing a bit 
more thoroughly. He had known a fellow at Oxford, young 
Brandon, who seemed a thoroughly normal person, fond of 
games and all that, with an excellent sense of humour, who 
had a complete faith in Roman Catholicism, including its 
saints and miracles, and went to Mass every blessed morn¬ 
ing! He said quite frankly that it helped him, and gave 
him pluck to face the horrors of life, including Dons and 
the daughters of Dons. Well, that was worth while! 
There were times when Julian himself felt the need of a lit¬ 
tle exterior help and found the riddle of life hopelessly per¬ 
plexing without some intelligent scheme behind it which pre¬ 
supposed a God. And sometimes alone in his rooms at Ox- 


Heirs Apparent 87 

ford, or quite suddenly on sunny days, as once on the road 
to Woodstock, he had had a sense of spirituality which was 
rather startling, a feeling of communion with the Divine es¬ 
sence of things, a queer sense of pantheism or mysticism or 
other worldliness. Probably some Freudian complex or in¬ 
herited nature worship! Who was that fellow who said if 
God didn’t exist it would be necessary to invent Him? Vol¬ 
taire? No, hardly! Anyhow it was an amusing idea, and 
not without truth. Most men did create some kind of a 
God for themselves, some code of law which was their re¬ 
ligion. He supposed he was doing it himself. Good form— 
liberty—beauty—the reverse of cruelty which he hated— 
tolerance—happiness. . . . 

A good looking fellow in old grey flannels and a blue ten¬ 
nis shirt open at the neck, came swinging into the road from 
a side lane, and Julian brought him to a halt by a question. 

“Am I right for Hartland ?” 

“As right as rain. Which end of the village do you want? 
There’s a short cut to the railway station.” 

“I want the vicarage,” said Julian. 

The young man gave him a sidelong glance and his lips 
twisted into a smile. 

“I’m going that way myself. As a matter of fact I’m the 
parson’s prodigal son.” 

“Oh,” said Julian, “then you’re Audrey’s brother.” 

“That’s right. Frank Nye, once of the Flying Corps, late 
of the London Joint City and Midland Bank, and now won¬ 
dering what in hell to do for a living. Are you Julian 
Perryam ?” 

Julian was surprised at this recognition. 

“How did you know?” 

“I didn’t. I just made a shot at it. Audrey’s always yap¬ 
ping about you. Holding you up as a sort of paragon. One 
of Arthur’s knights and all that. Besides there was the 
deuce of a row in the family because you walked to Henley 
with the lass.” 

“Do you see any reason why I shouldn’t have?” asked 
Julian. 

Frank Nye laughed good humouredly. 


88 Heirs Apparent 

“You and Audrey can walk from here to Halifax as far 
as I’m concerned. I’m not a moralist.” 

“I am—more or less—” said Julian rather coldly, “but 
that walk didn’t interfere with my sense of morality.” 

Frank Nye seemed to ponder over this distinction with a 
puzzled smile. 

“No doubt there’s a difference,” he said presently, “but I 
fail to see it. Anyhow, I may as well tell you straight away 
that I’ve no more moral sense than a tinker’s dog. I was in 
Flanders and Picardy in time of war.” 

“What’s that got to do with it?” asked Julian. 

Frank Nye seemed to see a good joke somewhere. 

“Well, we had to live in a hurry. Unless one grabbed at 
life it might elude one’s grasp with a nose-dive. Still I don’t 
want to press that too much. We had some little saints with 
us who flew straight away to Heaven. Perhaps it’s my nat¬ 
ural depravity, intensified by early suppression in an ecclesi¬ 
astical atmosphere. I’m the Bad Hat of Hartland.” 

He announced that title with an air of whimsical impor¬ 
tance as though it were a claim to honourable distinction. 

“I expect you’re pulling my leg a little,” said Julian, who 
rather liked the look of the fellow and the tone of his voice. 

“Not in the least,” said Frank Nye. “If anything I rather 
minimise my infamy. I might almost claim that I’m the 
Lost Sheep of Surrey. From the Wheatsheaf of Hartland 
to the Black Horse of Grinstead I’m know as Parson Nye’s 
son what’s gone to the bad. In any gipsy’s caravan from 
Gomshall to Chichester they will identify me as that young 
fellow-me-lad who’s the boon companion of tinkers and 
tramps, the tavern haunting friend of young swells at a 
loose end, and the unfaithful swain of the prettiest barmaids 
and sauciest shop girls in Guildford, Leatherhead, and the 
surrounding hamlets. If you happen to ask my clerical 
father he’ll tell you that I’m on the high road to Hell and 
that only a miracle can save me from eternal damnation.” 

“Well, now I know,” said Julian with his superior smile. 
“Thanks very much for the information.” 

“Not at all,” said Frank Nye. “Delighted! Is there likely 
to be a new war soon, do you think ?” 


Heirs Apparent 89 

“There seems to be a reasonable prospect,” answered 
Julian with irony. “Some of the newspapers seem to be 
doing their best.” 

“Good for them!” said Frank Nye. “I’m fed up with 
peace. Better be dead in a ditch than blighted in a Bank. 
Don’t you agree ?” 

“I’m not sure,” said Julian. “I haven’t tried either.” 

“Take it from me,” said Frank Nye, with an air of au¬ 
thority. “Anyhow, here’s my father’s funk-hole. If they 
ask after me, tell them I’m going to look for a job.” , 

He saluted in the Air Force style, whistled to a wire-haired 
terrier which seemed to like him, and walked past the vicar¬ 
age. 

“Miss Audrey’s in the ’ammick in the garding,” was the 
information received by Julian from Mrs. Nye’s latest victim 
of intensive domestic training—a young maid in a dirty 
apron and cap perched sideways on red hair tied into a tight 
little bun behind. “If you’ll wait in the droring-room I’ll 
ask if she wants to see you.” 

“I’ll go into the garden,” said Julian. “Don’t you bother.” 

The hammock was slung under a big fir tree at the end of 
a lawn badly in need of mowing, and one of Audrey’s legs 
dangled over the edge of it with a generous display of silk 
stocking, which had sprung a “ladder.” 

“Hullo, Audrey!” said Julian. 

She squirmed round and gave a shout of glee, and then 
tumbled out of the hammock onto the lawn without dignity, 
dropping a book of verses and waving a glad hand. 

“Hullo, Julian! How frightfully decent of you!” 

“I’ve brought back your night things,” said Julian, dump¬ 
ing the brown paper parcel onto a garden seat. “They’ve 
been a cause of scandalous comment.” 

She squealed with laughter at the sight of the package 
which had become slightly disintegrated in transit, so that 
the string had loosened, and one end of her blue silk pyjamas 
bulged out of the brown paper. 

“You’ll never make a grocer’s assistant, Julian! What a 
parcel, and what a fuss there’s been about that little tramp of 
ours!” 


90 


Heirs Apparent 

“How’s the fetlock?” asked Julian. 

“Perfectly cured. I did a bit of Coue on it.” 

“What’s that?” 

“Auto-suggestion. ‘Every day in every way I get better 
and better.’ ” 

“Oh, Lord, yes! I thought that superstition had died a 
natural death.” 

“It’s still helpful in time of need,” said Audrey, “but it 
has its limitations. I find that suggestion, even of the most 
intensive kind, won’t teach my baby sisters not to quarrel 
and tear each other’s hair, which they do twice a day at 
least. Neither will it dispel the general air of impending 
tragedy which permeates the domestic atmosphere of this 
poverty-stricken household. The only thoroughly cheerful 
person is the architect of our inevitable ruin, the self-inocu- 
lated victim of social suicide, and the intoxicated possessor 
of spiritual and ecstatic dementia.” 

“Meaning what?” asked Julian. 

“Meaning my ridiculous and lovable Pa.” 

“What’s the matter with him?” asked Julian, vaguely 
alarmed. 

“An incurable disease,” said Audrey. “He’s infected with 
Roman Catholicism.” 

Julian did not appear as startled as Audrey had hoped. 
On the contrary he suggested that he could see no reason 
why Mr. Nye should not become a Roman Catholic, which 
was a very ancient and historic superstition—in which quite 
well connected and respectable people appeared to believe— 
or a Buddhist, or a Christian Scientist, or anything else of 
the kind, if it gave him any amusement and personal satis¬ 
faction. 

“I’m all for liberty of opinion. Surely you’re against re¬ 
ligious intolerance, Audrey ?” 

“Good heavens, yes!” said Audrey. “I’m for tolerance of 
every kind. ‘Tout savoir c’est tout pardonner / and all that. 
But in this case it’s a question of bread and butter and that 
little bit of jam which is so essential to human happiness. 
You see, if my father becomes a Roman Catholic he has to 
give up his living, and if he does that, what about poor little 


Heirs Apparent 91 

Audrey, to say nothing of my delicate mother, my two adora¬ 
ble baby sisters—the dirty little wretches!—and my brother 
Frank, who is out of a job?” 

“Yes, that’s a bit serious,” said Julian thoughtfully. “Very 
complicating. And by the bye, I met your brother Frank. 
Rather an amusing kind of bloke. Is he such a Bad Hat as 
he pretends to be?” 

Audrey was not sure whether her brother could be defi¬ 
nitely placed as a Bad Hat. Some time ago, for instance, 
and not very long, he had been one of our “heroic young air¬ 
men.” They had called him that in The Surrey Advertiser 
when he was mentioned in despatches for bringing down a 
Hun. His father, who now prayed for his salvation, not 
without hope of his sudden and blinding conversion, had 
gone about in war time bucking about this gallant boy for 
whom nothing in the world was too gpod. What had made 
the difference? Frank hadn’t changed in the very least. It 
was only that the world had changed, and the qualities useful 
for war didn’t seem adapted to peace. He loved the open 
air, the thrill of danger, something to do with his hands, 
earth and oil and old clothes, and queer people who were 
lawless except to their own code. 

“Frank and I understand each other,” said Audrey. “We 
used to when we were young enough to scratch and bite each 
other, and his four years difference in age didn’t make him 
a match for my fury of attack, to say nothing of my tongue 
which had him beat all the time. There’s a lot of good stuff 
in Frank, if England gave him half a chance. It’s boredom 
that’s sapping his young soul. I’m getting anxious about 
him.” 

“Drink?” asked Julian. 

“Worse,” said Audrey. 

“Girls?” 

“Little sluts,” said Audrey. 

She was thoughtful for a moment, and then laughed 
rather anxiously. 

“He’s asking for trouble in that direction. I don’t object 
to his going to dances with local shop girls, though it’s a bit 
awkward when they sing in father’s choir and make eyes at 


92 Heirs Apparent 

him in church. But it’s past the limit when he strolls about 
the lanes with gipsy girls and is hauled off to Epsom police 
station for fighting with a gang of toughs who accused him 
of carrying on with one of their ladies. He had the sense to 
give another name when he was brought up in court. But 
some kind friend told father, of course.” 

Julian whistled. 

“I suppose your governor didn’t like it much?” 

“Well, father’s queer—and very simple—” said Audrey. 
“He actually stood up for Frank on that occasion because 
he’d defended the girl when they started knocking her about. 
He thought it was noble and chivalrous, and gave Frank the 
money to pay the fine. It was mother who took it to heart 
most. She’s a conventionalist.” 

“Like mine,” said Julian. “But I’d like to meet your 
father. He seems a bit of a type.” 

“Perfectly priceless,” said Audrey. “A heart of gold. 
Without guile. But a most deplorable nuisance to his eldest 
daughter. Argument won’t prevail with him. He smiles 
meekly at my wrath. Only mother’s tears and pleadings, 
poor dear, touch the perfect joy of his faith in our Blessed 
Lady and the English martyrs with whom he walks in spirit 
along the Pilgrim’s Way.” 

Julian’s desire to meet Mr. Nye was gratified later in the 
day after he had taken Audrey to have tea in a bun shop in 
Guildford where she consumed a large number of eclairs 
and shed a few tears out of laughing eyes at the memories 
of Oxford days which were now beyond recall because of 
her unfortunate affair with Beatrice Tuck’s prominent and 
preposterous nose. 

“I feel stifled at home,” she said. “Mother goes about 
the house like a wet blanket because of father’s perverted 
faith. Her only signs of a still unbroken spirit are her con¬ 
stant rebukes of my unladylike behaviour. As the Scrip¬ 
tures say, she is convinced of my ‘abundance of naughti¬ 
ness.’ ” 

“Why?” asked Julian. “You seem to me a model of pro¬ 
priety, if I may say so.” 

“You may say so,” said Audrey, holding his hand across 


Heirs Apparent 93 

the table until he released it because a waitress was watching 
them with a smile. “I like to hear you say so, Julian! But 
mother doesn’t share your good and tolerant opinion. If I 
show my legs up to the knees in chair or hammock, she’s 
distressed and shocked.” 

“Good Lord!” said Julian. “At this time in the world’s 
history ?” 

“If I smoke a cigarette in the drawing-room she looks as 
though the house were on fire.” 

Julian admitted that his mother was more advanced than 
that. 

“She smokes all over the place. Thinks it’s a sign of social 
standing and modern ideas.” 

“Mother is still considerably worried about you ” said 
Audrey, looking frankly at Julian out of her brown eyes, 
with a glint of amusement. 

“About me ? What’s her trouble as far as I’m concerned ? 
Surely she doesn’t go on worrying about that little walk we 
had?” 

“She does go on worrying,” said Audrey. “That’s the 
devil of it. I haven’t lulled her sinister suspicions.” 

“Incredible!” said Julian. “Monstrous!” 

“You see, she’s never set eyes on you. She thinks you 
may be some licentious fellow with a loose mouth and blood¬ 
shot eyes. I think if she looked into your candid eyes and 
gazed a moment upon your knightlike visage she might be 
reassured.” 

“You’d better take me home and show me off,” said Julian, 
smiling with just the faintest blush which Audrey noted 
as an additional charm showing that his mask of self-assur¬ 
ance was not quite impenetrable. 

“Well, if you can bear to toy with cold mutton, I might 
invite you to supper,” she suggested, and waited rather 
eagerly for his acceptance of the invitation. 

For a moment he hesitated. The Nye household did not 
seem a cheery spot from Audrey’s description, and cold 
mutton was one of his horrors. But Audrey’s obvious de¬ 
sire to take him home made him yield, rather grudgingly. 

They did not go straight home after leaving the tea-shop. 


94 Heirs Apparent 

They sat in the Castle grounds at Guildford, talking Oxford 
for a time., and then “did” a movie show at the picture palace 
—rather like a shop boy and girl, thought Julian, especially 
when Audrey snuggled rather close to him and tucked her 
hand through his arm. After that they walked home 
through Clandon, past the Onslow Arms and the new bunga¬ 
lows—jerry-built doll’s houses! remarked Audrey—and so 
to Hartland through an avenue of beeches with dancing 
leaves gleaming in the evening sunshine. 

“A good spot,” said Audrey. “A fairy glade, Julian. 
Like Barrie’s enchanted wood in ‘Dear Brutus.’ I feel a 
little like Faith Celli, as the artist’s daughter, afraid to 
wake up and find I haven’t been born.” 

Julian suddenly breathed deeply and spoke with a kind of 
suppressed passion. 

“I want London! This prettiness palls on me. I want 
the roar of traffic, and the lights of the streets, and the good 
old human tide. I want to meet people, and find out what 
they’re all doing and thinking, and what’s in the world for 
me, and what life means in a big way. Oxford was a clois¬ 
ter. Surrey is a pleasure garden for week-end golfers, re¬ 
tired colonels, and people who hide from the real show and 
pretend it isn’t going on.” 

Audrey was surprised at his sudden brain storm. But it 
seemed to please her. 

“Is that how you feel? You’re beginning to wake up, 
Julian! I like that restless feeling of yours. T was a bit 
afraid you might be content with tennis and tea parties.” 

They stood outside her garden gate and she put her hand 
on his arm. 

“You and I will meet in London. Don’t pass me in the 
street with your supercilious smile.” 

“When are you going?” asked Julian. 

“When father clears out from here, and that’s in a week 
or two from now.” 

“As soon as that? By Jove!” 

“By Jove, indeed! It’s us for poverty and the London 
slums. If you’re there, Julian, it will help to keep my 
courage up a little.” 


XIII 


J ULIAN seemed to make a good impression with Audrey’s 
parents over the cold mutton, and afterwards. He made 
an instant impression upon Julia and Celia, who shook 
hands with him gravely and watched him afterwards with 
amorous eyes, undisguised. 

Mrs. Nye seemed a little startled at first when he was 
introduced and said, “So you’re Mr. Julian Perryam,” with 
a faint flush creeping into her pale, tired-looking face as 
though ashamed of certain secret and sinister thoughts about 
him. Perhaps Audrey had been right about the honesty of 
his look. 

Mr. Nye carved the cold mutton as though it were the 
choicest dish, and pressed him to take some more from the 
knuckle end, which he thought was always the most attrac¬ 
tive part of the joint. He also praised the water of Hart- 
land and district, which seemed to him to have a delicious, 
sparkle in it. For Julian’s benefit, so recently an undergrad¬ 
uate of Oxford, he quoted a number of old tags. 

. . ‘A little learning is a dangerous thing, 

Drink deep or taste not the Peirian spring.” 

. . . “ ‘Ver non semper viretf —Spring does not always flour¬ 
ish, Mr. Perryam. . . . ‘Omnia mutantur, nos et mutamur 
in illis' ... It seems a thousand years since I was number 
seven in the Oxford crew. Oxford has changed since then 
too. I don’t think you men of to-day take things quite so 
seriously as we did. We used to be wildly interested in 
politics. What debates at the Union during the Home Rule 
struggle! What heated controversies about Gladstone and 
Harcourt and Parnell and Joe Chamberlain! What tremen¬ 
dous talks at night about religion, art, the civilising influence 
of the British Empire. Storms used to rage round Kip- 

95 


96 Heirs Apparent 

ling’s works—and what endless arguments about Free 
Trade and Tariff Reform! Now, from what Audrey tells 
me, you’re more interested in jazz and cinematograph 
shows—the pathetic absurdities of Charlie Chaplin and the 
simpering prettiness of Mary Pickford. Correct me if I’m 
wrong.” 

Julian did not trouble to correct him very warmly, and 
responded to Audrey’s wink with the faintest smile. 

“There are still some earnest souls at Oxford,” he ven¬ 
tured. “They do a considerable amount of yapping. Still 
I admit that the majority doesn’t take life very seriously. 
Is it worth while, do you think?” 

Audrey was vastly amused at that bland enquiry, espe¬ 
cially as it excited her father. 

“My dear lad,” he said, laying down his knife and fork 
with an air of consternation on his handsome young-looking 
face, with a kind of inner light shining from his blue eyes. 
“A question like that makes me despair of modern youth! 
It’s the kind of thing my son Frank says. It’s what all you 
young men seem to be saying. It’s utterly necessary to take 
life seriously, if there’s to be any progress at all in this war- 
stricken and un-Christian world. If you don’t take it seri¬ 
ously, above all if youth doesn’t get rid of this appalling 
slackness and levity, I see no hope at all for the coming gen¬ 
erations. We need a burning faith sweeping through the 
hearts of men and calling them to God. It’s the lack of 
faith that’s destroying us. Faith in divine love, faith in 
God’s purpose with men, faith in our spiritual heritage.” 

“Now, father,” said Audrey, raising her forefinger, “if 
you get on to religion and try to cram Catholicism down the 
throat of my guest, I shall upset the water jug or spill the 
salt into the sugar.” 

“Yes,” said Mrs. Nye, sadly, “I think we had better avoid 
religious controversy, John. It only leads to bitterness.” 

It had led to considerable bitterness of late in her own 
heart, as Julian guessed, and as Audrey had hinted. Hour 
after hour, day after day, she had pleaded with her husband 
to remain true to the Church of England, loyal to the thirty- 
nine articles which to her were absolute in truth. She had 


Heirs Apparent 97 

delved into books which had gone musty on the shelves— 
Paley’s ‘Evidences’—Fox’s ‘Book of Martyrs,’ Dean Far¬ 
rar’s ‘Life of Christ’—in order to present her adorable but 
fantastic husband with arguments which might keep him 
in the straight path of Anglican orthodoxy. Audrey had 
heard her voice at night in their bedroom going over all 
these old bits of Protestant theology, raising pitiful protests 
against the iniquities of the Catholic Church, as far as she 
could remember them from a vague knowledge of ancient 
history. 

“But, Dad! Surely you remember the bad Popes ? The 
abominable things they did! . . . 

“But, my dear, my dear! Rome is steeped in iniquity! 

. . . The Inquisition was cruel beyond words. . . . The 
Reformation was so very necessary to purify the Church. 

. . . Are you going to deny the faith of a life-time—all 
your work in Walworth? ... It will break my heart if 
you join the Church of Rome, with all its heresy which I 
was taught to hate as a girl. I shall feel so lonely if we’re 
separated in religion. And our social position! This dear 
parish, the organ, all our friends. . . .” 

Then Audrey had heard her father’s soothing voice, his 
boyish laughter at old theological falsities, as he called them, 
his excited proclamation of the truth and joy of the deeper 
faith he had found. Then her mother’s tears. . . . 

Julian guessed something of that when in answer to her 
protest Mr. Nye smiled and kissed his wife’s hand. 

“I’m not talking dogma, my dearest! Only asking this 
young man to take life seriously and love God.” 

“I’m afraid religion is rather out of my line,” said Julian 
modestly. “But I have an open mind about it.” 

“Same here,” said Audrey, light-heartedly. “Let’s go and 
have some coffee while we can afford it.” 

For a moment or two Julian was left alone with Mr. Nye 
in his study, a dismal room with a ragged carpet and a 
rather musty smell from the brown-backed books on the 
shelves. When he lit a cigarette Mr. Nye asked if he could 
spare one from his case, and confessed with a laugh that he 
never smoked now unless he could sponge on a friend. 


98 


Heirs Apparent 

“A question of economy!” 

“Hard luck!” said Julian, startled by this extreme pov¬ 
erty. 

“Not for me,” said Mr. Nye. “But I’m a little anxious 
about my wife and children. When I leave the Church of 
England I shall have to find some kind of work to do. If 
you happen to hear of anything suitable to a man of my at¬ 
tainments—pretty good at the classics, not ignorant of Eng¬ 
lish literature, something of an archaeologist—I shall be 
obliged if you will let me know.” 

“I certainly will,” said Julian, “but I’m afraid it’s going 
to be difficult.” 

In his own mind he was convinced that it would be im¬ 
possible for this middle-aged man to get a job at a time 
when thousands of ex-officers were out of work, to say noth¬ 
ing of a million men; harder than his own case, with a simi¬ 
lar education, but with youth on his side and a secret confi¬ 
dence in his own gifts. 

“Difficult,” said Mr. Nye, “I admit. But rather a lark, as 
far as I’m concerned. Beginning life all over again! Facing 
the world with a few talents and infinite faith in God’s good¬ 
ness. Waiting to be hired in the vineyard, like those who 
came at a late hour. Rather a game!” 

He laughed as joyously as a schoolboy looking forward 
to the holidays. 

“Not a game for Mrs. Nye and Audrey,” said Julian 
rather severely. This man was committing social suicide 
with too light a heart, he thought. Surely he ought to sub¬ 
ordinate his opinions to the duty of providing for his 
family? 

“God will provide,” said Mr. Nye, as though answering 
Julian’s thoughts. “It doesn’t do to worry too much over 
the material side of life.” 

At the end of the evening Audrey came with Julian to the 
gate and stood there a few moments in the glimmering dark¬ 
ness. 

“Funny family, mine,” she said, “don’t you think?” 

“Your father’s a wonder,” answered Julian. “A mediev¬ 
alist. I never saw any one like him.” 


Heirs Apparent 99 

“A dear,” she said, “but damnably ridiculous. Plunging 
us into destitution, and praying to Our Lady to find him a 
job.” 

“Lunacy,” said Julian. “It oughtn’t to be allowed at this 
time of day. What on earth are you going to do?” 

“Learn typing,” said Audrey, “and hire myself out as 
bondswoman to some Jew financier, or something of the 
kind. The early ’bus to the city, an A.B.C. lunch—‘Please 
copy this, Miss Nye, and look sharp about it’—the fight in 
the six o’clock tube—oh, Hell!” 

“Keep your pecker up!” 

“It’s frightfully funny,” she answered, “if one keeps a 
sense of humour!” 

She laughed at the fun of it, but Julian saw a sudden 
glisten of moisture in her eyes. He did not wait for her to 
put her face up this time as in the inn at Henley, but bent 
down and kissed her. 

She put her hands on his shoulders and returned his kiss 
with an emotion that rather startled him. “See you in 
London!” she said and then ran back to the porch and went 
indoors. 


XIV 


M RS. PERRYAM gave a garden party on Wednesday 
of the first week in June to celebrate Janet’s eight¬ 
eenth birthday. That at least was the reason given, but 
Julian had a secret suspicion that it was mainly for the pur¬ 
pose of securing the attendance of Victor Buckland, who 
had not yet seen this young lady in spite of his son’s fre¬ 
quent visits. It was probable that Mr. Perryam also di¬ 
vined this tactical idea, for he became rather irritable at the 
mention of Buckland’s name and hoped “the old ruffian” 
would have an attack of the gout or be prevented from com¬ 
ing by one of his race meetings. 

“It’s bad enough to be pestered by him at the office at all 
times of the day and night—I think he sleeps with the tele¬ 
phone under his pillow !—without having him play the Noble 
Patriot in one’s own garden.” 

He spoke with unaccustomed bitterness, and was gloomy 
when his wife expressed her belief in keeping in with the 
Powers that Be—“especially when they pay for one’s bread 
and butter, old dear.” 

“The bread of servitude!” said Mr. Perryam. “Besides I 
hate all this social show at a time like this when half the 
people in Europe are starving to death.” 

“Bother Europe!” said Mrs. Perryam cheerfully. “We 
have to live up to our station in life, and your position has 
certain responsibilities which I, at least, must fulfil whether 
I like it or not. For the children’s sake.” 

“We were happier in our earlier married life,” said Mr. 
Perryam. “Happier, and more honest when I was a young 
reporter on four guineas a week and you had a little maid 
of all work.” 

Julian’s mother gave an exaggerated shudder at that rec¬ 
ollection. 


100 


Heirs Apparent 101 

“I shouldn’t care to go back to that squalour, old dear! 
Now do be reasonable, and don’t cast a gloom over Janet’s 
birthday party.” 

“My frock will cheer you up,” said Janet. “It’s a glory!” 

“And a glorious bill to pay for it, I’ll be bound,” said Mr. 
Perryam, but he bent down and kissed Janet’s pretty, white 
neck as he passed her at the breakfast table on his way to 
his study. 

“Doing any work to-day?” he asked Julian who strolled 
down at an unusually early hour in his bedroom slippers and 
green silk dressing gown. 

“Possibly,” said Julian in his non-committal way. As a 
matter of fact he intended to do a bit of writing if he felt 
inspired. 

His father gave a short laugh. 

“If I had said that to my news editor in the old days there 
would have been hell to pay!” 

“Thank Heaven, I’m not a journalist,” said Julian, help¬ 
ing himself to kidneys on toast. 

“No,” said Mr. Perryam, “but don’t forget that I am, and 
that my work pays for your leisure.” 

Julian flushed a little and laughed. 

“That’s all right! The privilege of the rising generation.” 

Father and son looked at each other for a moment, smil¬ 
ing, but with a kind of challenge. Julian was aware of his 
father’s impatience with his free life. After all he had 
agreed to the idea, which was perfectly reasonable, sound, 
and good. Why should Julian start at the bottom of the 
ladder as a hack journalist when his father had reached the 
top? The point was to aspire to higher things altogether— 
literature instead of journalese, beauty instead of bunk. 

Mr. Perryam whistled “The Long, Long Trail,” inac¬ 
curately but good-humouredly. 

“The rising generation,” he repeated with cheerful irony. 
“I’m afraid we’re spoiling the lot of you. And that merry 
mother of yours aids and abets.” 

He left the room with an air of tolerant resignation to the 
inevitable facts of life. 

“Well, now,” said Mrs. Perryam, with undisguised relief 


102 Heirs Apparent 

at her husband’s exit, “we can get on with this tea-fight. 
How many invitations have we sent out?” 

They had sent out eighty invitations to the local gentry, 
mostly of Surrey, including several of the old county families 
and, above all, the Countess of Longhurst. 

“Must we have that old terror?” asked Julian. “She’ll 
frighten the birds out of the bushes.” 

“She’s a nice old dear,” said his mother, “and fright¬ 
fully important. Her husband is Lord Lieutenant of the 
County.” 

“Well, don’t ask me to be civil to her,” said Julian. “She’s 
an infernally patronising old woman, and doesn’t wash be¬ 
hind the ears. I met her at Oxford. She’s Clatworthy’s 
aunt.” 

He was bored with all the preliminaries of this garden 
party, which upset the whole household, demoralised the 
servants, and entirely destroyed his literary inspiration for at 
least three days. 

He sympathised with his grandfather, who complained 
mildly that “this snob affair” would interfere with his usual 
nap under the Scotch fir where he liked to sit in a deck chair 
after lunch, carefully placed so that it was not too much 
in the glare of the sun, nor yet too much in the shade. 

“Your mother, Julian,” he said, “is a very dominating 
woman. She treats me as if I were a bit of household furni¬ 
ture, to be moved out of the way whenever possible. Your 
father has no authority over her whatever. He never had. 
In my opinion—and, of course, nobody ever listens to me—• 
the Suffragette movement is responsible for the wreck of 
English home life. We’ve never recovered from it. Women’s 
rights! Liberty! Burning pillar-boxes. Breaking windows. 
Clinging to policemen. That was before your time I dare¬ 
say. Disgraceful! What respect could children have for 
their mothers when they came home with their hair down 
and their clothes torn after a scuffle in Trafalgar Square? 
Let me give you a piece of advice, Julian, dear boy. Marry 
a nice girl, not too intellectual—I don’t believe in the Higher 
Education of Women—and treat her gently but firmly. Es¬ 
tablish your authority at the outset. That was how I treated 


Heirs Apparent 103 

your grandmother, and she liked it, and respected me. Your 
mother has no respect for your father. She never had. 
Rumpled his hair when he disagreed with her. Flouted him 
when he opposed her slightest wish. Now she’s spending 
his hard-earned money in all this society nonsense—this 
great house—these pampered menials. It will end in tragedy, 
mark my words. How am I going to get my little nap this 
afternoon when all those cackling women arrive?” 

“Now, grandfather, old dear,” cried Mrs. Perryam, ap¬ 
pearing in her new garden-party frock, which made her look 
almost as young as Janet, and in Julian’s eyes, far more 
beautiful—“go and make yourself look nice, in that new grey 
suit of yours.” 

The old man winked solemnly at Julian. 

“Orders!” he said. “Right about turn, quick march! 
Modern women!” 

But he obeyed, and in due course appeared looking ex¬ 
tremely distinguished in his new grey suit with a white top 
hat which he wore at a rakish angle, like a retired General 
of the old school. He was observed later by Julian in an 
open flirtation with the Countess of Longhurst, who agreed 
with him that England was not the same, and never would 
be the same again. Morals had gone. The revolutionary 
spirit was rampant. It was all due, agreed Julian’s grand¬ 
father and the Countess of Longhurst, to that rascal Lloyd 
George and his Limehouse language before the war. He 
had been rather good in time of war. Now he had reverted 
again and was playing into the hands of the Germans. 

The old lady gave Julian two bony fingers and stared at 
him through her lorgnette. She had a weather-beaten old 
face as wrinkled as a gipsy’s, but very bright, piercing, hu¬ 
morous eyes. 

“You know my nephew, Johnny Clatworthy,” she said 
abruptly. “A very impudent young devil, too! Always up 
to mischief, and getting into debt from what his father tells 
me. I had eleven nephews killed in the war, thank God. 
I mean they all did their duty, dear fellows. The English 
gentry did. But Johnny isn’t a patch on any of them. Don’t 
you let him lead you into evil ways, young man.” 


104 Heirs Apparent 

She tapped him on the shoulder with her lorgnette, and 
smiled at him. 

“You’re a nice-looking fellow. It’s good to see some of 
you alive s.till. Don’t get into trouble with the girls. They’re 
mostly hussies nowadays. What are you going to do?” 

“In what way?” asked Julian. “With the girls, do you 
mean ?” 

“No, I don’t—sauce-box! The less you do with them the 
better, and tell that to Johnny, the young limb ! I mean as a 
profession. The Law—the Church—?” 

“I’m going to write a bit,” said Julian. “At least I hope 
to.” 

“Like your father?” 

The old lady was doubtful. 

“Well, of course, journalists nowadays are better than 
they used to be. I used to send ’em to the servants’ entrance 
when they came to interview my husband. Once I set the 
dogs at a ‘reporter,’ as he called himself, though he looked 
like a tramp. Now they’ve been made Peers of the Realm 
and baronets and knights. I daresay some of them deserved 
it. I’d make them archangels if they’d kill all this beastly 
Bolshevism.” 

She thanked God that Victor Buckland and Julian’s father 
were making a dead set against revolutionary Labour and 
supporting France against the Germans. 

“I will say The Week's a patriotic paper, though rather 
smutty now and then,” she said. “That’s why I’m here this 
afternoon.” 

She gazed across the lawn at a new arrival. 

“Ah, there is dear Mr. Buckland! Those powerful articles 
of his each week give me a good deal of comfort. A strong 
healthy tone and no nonsense. Only I don’t see the need of 
printing his portrait every time. He’s not a beauty.” 

Victor Buckland arrived in his Rolls-Royce, accompanied 
by Cyril who winked at Julian and kissed his hand to Lady 
Longhurst before looking round for Janet. 

Mr. Buckland wore his most genial smile and a white rose 
in his buttonhole. But he was not a beauty, as the Countess 
of Longhurst had remarked. He was a tall, heavy-shoul- 


Heirs Apparent 105 

dered man, prodigiously stout at the lower part of his white 
waistcoat. His eyes, very restless and watchful, were heavily 
bagged under their lower lids, and his broad, clean-shaven 
face was flabby and unhealthily white. 

“Hullo, Perryam!” he said to Julian’s father, holding out 
a large hand with an immense diamond on the third finger. 
“Nice little place you’ve got here. And quite a gathering! I 
like to see one of my editors in a happy home life. Ex¬ 
cellent !” 

Julian noticed his father’s face flush, and his lips tighten. 
This public proclamation by Mr. Buckland, delivered in a 
loud, throaty, genial voice, was rather too patronising. He 
took all the credit for this Perryam party and this house and 
grounds. He paid his editor well! Good wages for good 
work! 

“Good of you to come,” said Mr. Perryam rather coldly. 
“Let me introduce you to my wife and daughter.” 

“Delighted, Perryam. How do you do, Mrs. Perryam? 
Your husband and I don’t always see eye to eye on matters 
of policy—he’s a bit of a sentimentalist, eh, and no blame 
to him!—but I know merit when I see it. The finest editor 
in England, I must say that! And this is Miss Janet? Cyril 
spots a pretty girl as quickly as I do a good journalist. The 
young rogue! Well, well, it’s a great game. Life! Youth! 
Progress! Patriotism! Thank God for England!” 

These last remarks, or interjections, were delivered in a 
way that could be heard by the other guests in the garden, 
or at least by those on the front lawn, gazing with curiosity, 
and some of them with reverence, at the great newspaper 
proprietor whose weekly papers upheld the noblest traditions 
of English life at least in maintaining undying hatred of the 
Germans, in refusing aid to starving and Bolshevik Russia, 
in ridiculing the selfish and blatant arrogance of the Ameri¬ 
cans, in preaching duty, discipline, the love of God, and the 
necessity of lower wages to the working classes in return 
for cheaper beer, racing tips, lottery tickets, immense Prizes, 
full divorce reports, and heaps of sport. A good healthy 
tone, as the Countess of Longhurst had remarked. 

Julian moved away from the neighbourhood of old Buck- 


106 Heirs Apparent 

land. He disliked the man not so much for his politics as 
for his paunch. It offended his fastidious eyes. The man 
was gross. It would be horrible for Janet to have him for a 
father-in-law. Also the patronising of his father made him 
angry. It was an unpleasant thought that his father was 
this man’s hireling, and that the fortunes of the family de¬ 
pended utterly on his good will and favour. 

Julian’s eyes roved among his mother’s guests for any one 
likely to interest him. To his youthful intolerance and Ox¬ 
ford point of view they seemed to him singularly devoid of 
attraction. They were mostly middle-aged or elderly people 
whom he had met, and now vaguely remembered, in his holi¬ 
days from Winchester and between the Oxford terms. Then 
they lived for the most part in old-fashioned houses with big 
gardens surrounded by high walls still guarding their beauty 
against the outstretching tentacles of London. Now many 
of them had put their houses up for sale and were living in 
newly-built villas and bungalows where they “did” with 
fewer servants or, in the case of some of these elderly ladies, 
without them. They made no secret of that. He heard, 
them laughing to his mother about their poverty. 

“The income tax, my dear! It’s bleeding us to death.” 

“We had to give up our car. We miss it dreadfully—but 
what’s the use of complaining? We’re the New Poor now! 
Soon we shall be reduced to taking in each other’s washing, 
like the French aristocrats after the revolution.” 

“Oh, it’s not as bad as all that!” said his mother breezily. 
“I notice a good many cars up the drive!” 

“There won’t be many if Labour gets into power,” said 
a little old lady, with painted cheeks and a high collar like an 
Elizabethan ruff. “Those Socialists will make mince-meat 
of us, the wretches.” 

Julian thought most of these people looked tired and sad 
beneath their deliberate attempts to be bright and gay. They 
seemed nerve-worn and anxious. He felt rather irritated 
with this elderly pessimism, this melancholy outlook on life. 
As he moved about the gardens, making himself civil, as he 
called it, he overheard scraps of conversation between his 


Heirs Apparent 107 

mother’s guests which were all in the nature of lamentations 
or prophecies of woe. 

“Of course, there has been a sad reaction. The war has 
left us spiritually exhausted, my dear.” 

“My boy was killed in Flanders, like yours. What’s left 
for us now? Just a weary time of waiting till we join 
them again.” 

“Is it going to happen all over again ? That is what ter¬ 
rifies me. This affair in the Ruhr—won’t it drive Germany 
into the arms of Russia?” 

Julian was bored stiff, as he called it, with all this gloom 
and apprehension. In spite of the sunshine and the flowers 
in his mother’s garden, and some excellent strawberries and 
cream, these people—many of them, anyhow—exhaled an 
atmosphere of querulous dissatisfaction with their conditions 
of life, or worse still, of resignation to its “tragedy.” They 
were fairly wallowing, he thought, in self-pity, and quaking 
with fear for the future. They were afraid of every damn 
thing—afraid of trade unions, labour unrest, the income 
tax, American competition, France, Germany, Russia, H. G. 
Wells, the Rising Tide of Colour in the Mohammedan 
World, Bolshevism, the decline of religion, Dean Inge, and 
above all, and always, afraid of the younger generation. 

He overheard a lady named Mrs. Alloway speaking to his 
mother. He had played tennis in her garden. 

“My dear Mrs. Perryam, what are we to do with the 
young people? They refuse to submit to any kind of au¬ 
thority. They think of nothing but pleasure—this eternal 
dancing!—they do the wildest things! You may be lucky! 
I confess I’m in despair about Kitty and Bob. I lie awake 
at nights—” 

What an amazing bug that was in these elderly people’s 
brains! They were positively terror-stricken about their 
own sons and daughters. It was a kind of obsession with 
them. They couldn’t leave the subject alone. Julian had no 
patience with it, being perfectly confident in the admirable 
nature of his own youth, and in his own superiority of in¬ 
telligence, morality, courage, and vitality, to these tired, 


108 Heirs Apparent 

timid people. He was aware that some of the women gazed 
at him with a curiously wistful, admiring, almost hungry 
look. One lady spoke to him without an introduction. 

“I’m Mrs. Wainwright. Talk to me a little, won’t 
you ?” 

“Delighted,” said Julian politely. “Can I fetch strawber¬ 
ries and cream ?” 

“No. Tell me about Oxford. You’re just down, aren’t 
you?” 

He told her as much as he thought was good for her—a 
few generalities, a light epigram or two. She listened smil¬ 
ing, and then he noticed a little hint of moisture in her rather 
beautiful, tired-looking eyes. 

“My boy was about your age,” she said. “Before—other 
things!” 

“Oh, Lord!” thought Julian. “One of the Mournful 
Mothers!” 

He was not unkind or callous, only intolerant of gloom. 

But she did not bewail her loneliness to him. 

“What’s your idea about the future?” she asked. “Are 
you going to prevent that Thing happening again ? It’s up to 
you. The coming Youth.” 

She spoke with a kind of timid eagerness, devouring him 
with her smiling eyes. 

“I’m afraid the future will have to look after itself,” said 
Julian. “Anyhow, I don’t see my way to alter the world— 
just yet!” 

He answered lightly, with a laugh, insisted upon her hav¬ 
ing some strawberries and cream. 

He went to fetch some, but forgot his mission because it 
was then that he was introduced to Evelyn Iffield. 

She belonged undoubtedly to the younger crowd, although 
four or five years older than Julian, being, as far as he could 
guess, about twenty-five or six, and with tremendous ex¬ 
perience (as he discovered later) having been married twice 
already—once to a fellow killed on the Somme about five 
minutes after their wedding at St. Mary Abbot’s Kensing¬ 
ton, and now to that dull old Major man, Iffield, who had 
blabbed to his mother about the walk to Henley. 


Heirs Apparent 109 

Evelyn attracted his notice instantly by her look of vi¬ 
tality and freshness among the Old People, as Audrey called 
them. She was laughing at his sister Janet and with Cyril 
Langdon who seemed to know her well. She had a rather 
foreign look, he thought. That is to say, she had almost 
black hair looped over her little white ears, and very large* 
dark eyes full of light and laughter, and a high colour in her 
cheeks, though without a touch of coarseness or over-ripe¬ 
ness. She was a tall thin thing, with finely cut features and 
a grace of movement like French girls he had seen at Deau¬ 
ville and Cannes. Not a bit English in her look, though, 
as she told him afterwards, of good old Somersetshire stock. 
Possibly a “throw-back,” she thought, to British or Roman 
or Gipsy blood. 

“Come over and have tea with me one day,” she said to 
Janet. “My house is worth seeing, it’s the real old thing— 
early Stuart—and my husband is mostly on the golf links 
so that we needn’t behave ourselves too well. I’ve generally 
a few amusing boys hanging around—like Cyril here, who 
condescends to give me a game of tennis now and then.” 

“I’d love to come,” said Janet, laughing 

“I don’t think much of her tennis,” said Cyril, “but she 
plays Bridge like a card sharper. The money I lose!” 

It was then that Julian touched his sister’s arm and was 
introduced to Mrs. Iffield. 

She gave him one glance with her big, dark eyes and 
seemed to like the look of him. 

“You’re Oxford,” she said. “And Balliol I’ll bet any¬ 
thing.” 

“Right,” said Julian. “How did you know?” 

Mrs. Iffield held his eyes with her smile so that he felt 
himself blushing. 

“Easy. I’ve seen the type before. Shy but supercilious. 
Courteous, but, oh, so cold!” 

“That’s very rough ! The Perfect Prig!” 

“ ‘The very purfit gentil knight,’ ” said Evelyn Iffield. 
“Chaucer, I believe!” 

Her laughter was the prettiest thing he had heard for some 
time, thought Julian. 


110 Heirs Apparent 

“Who's going to get me a strawberry ice?" she asked. 

Of course, Julian fetched it for her, and they went into a 
quiet part of the garden, in a little summer house where no 
guests penetrated, and Julian was no longer bored stiff. 
Mrs. Iffield was wonderfully entertaining and rather thrill¬ 
ing. Unlike all the other married women he knew she did 
not condescend to him, but put herself on a level with him, 
used his own slang, swore little oaths which rather shocked 
him at first until he thought how pretty they sounded on her 
lips, and drew him out about his own point of view so that 
he found himself talking to her easily, intimately, with a 
self-revelation which afterwards abashed him. 

It was the episode with Audrey that made the talk inti¬ 
mate. She said that her husband had told her how he had 
met Julian at Henley with a pretty kid. 

“Yes," said Julian, “I’ve a grudge against him for that. 
I threatened to break his bones. Sorry!" 

“I shouldn’t try," said Mrs. Iffield. “He’s quite strong, 
and dangerous when roused. Otherwise as gentle as a lamb 
—and, oh, so patient with my naughtiness!’’ 

“Does he generally go about spreading scandal?" asked 
Julian blandly. 

Evelyn Iffield smacked his hand. 

“That’s rather rude, isn’t it?" 

But she was not really angry. 

“He’s a simple soul," she said. “Goes to church on Sun¬ 
day, and takes me, when I’m not in bed with a novel. Per¬ 
haps he thought it well to give your mother a friendly hint." 

“Quite uncalled for," said Julian. 

Evelyn Iffield seemed to be amused by this criticism of her 
husband. 

“I like candour! But, you see, Ted belongs to an older 
generation, poor old dear! I alarm him horribly, though he 
tries to hide his fear. His mother feeds him with suspicion. 
She’s a female Iago, and I have the misfortune to live with 
her. . . . Tell me about Audrey. Is it love’s young dream 
between you?" 

“Good Lord, no!" said Julian. 

“No romantic posh?" asked Mrs. Iffield. “I should be 


Heirs Apparent 111 

glad to help in lover's meetings or anything useful in the 
cause of youth." 

“Much obliged," said Julian. “But we don't need any ac¬ 
commodation of that kind. We're rather pally, that’s all. 
You’re young enough to believe in that possibility, I sup¬ 
pose? One of us, in spite of being married and all that!’’ 

Mrs. Iffield delighted the birds with her laughter. 

“The heart of a child! That’s little me. One of you all 
right, Julian! An honorary member of the League of 
Youth." 

“Then you understand,” said Julian. “You know the 
pass-word and all that." 

He admitted her to his joyous confraternity of Youth, 
with its rights, privileges, and point of view. She confessed, 
however, that she had the wisdom of the serpent as well as 
the innocence of the dove. She had crammed a lot of ex¬ 
perience into her twenty-five years and would be glad to give 
Julian the benefit of it, if he ever felt uncertain of himself, 
which was hardly likely, having the self-confidence of Balliol 
and the arrogance of twenty. 

“I'm ready to listen," said Julian, with mock humility. 
“There are just a few things I’d like to know in greater de¬ 
tail. You are one of them, if you’ll allow me to say so." 

She allowed him to say so, and revealed some of her past 
life with a frankness which thrilled him. 

She had been bom in India, the daughter of General Hep- 
plewhite—“not the furniture man!" Her mother was the 
beautiful Edith Mansfield, daughter of Lord Binnington. 
Did that convey anything to Julian ? Not a thing! Oh, well, 
there had been a terrific scandal. The Week's Record —his 
father's paper!—had published columns of it before the war. 
A divorce case, and one of the best from the newspaper point 
of view. Of course, her mother was an absolute rotter, 
but rather a dear all the same, most frightfully pretty. Well, 
frightfully was hardly the word! Her father had been given 
the custody of the child. 

“I'm the child," said Evelyn Iffield, with her melodious 
laugh. “Poor little me!" 

She was twelve years old then. The General had travelled 


112 Heirs Apparent 

about Europe with her, hating to come back to England be¬ 
cause of the scandal. Cowardice that! They had lived in 
hotels and boarding houses in Holland, Belgium, France, 
Italy, Austria and Switzerland. She spoke French, German, 
and Italian, and had been made love to in more languages 
than that since she was sixteen years of age. 

“A rotten life for a girl, Julian. Horrible swine some of 
those Continental loungers watching out for any pretty girl 
as a new adventure! And my father was one of those sim¬ 
ple Victorian Englishmen who reverence the divine innocence 
of womanhood—innocence at Nice!—and would rather bite 
his tongue off than give a girl a straight talk about the temp¬ 
tations of life and its beastly dangers. Oh, I escaped all 
right—mostly by luck and the defensive instinct. Narrow 
shave, I can tell you! At Biarritz there was a blighter—well, 
I needn’t go into that! . . . Then came the war. The jolly 
old war! My God! . . . The girls did all right as far as 
pluck went, and generous giving for England’s sake and all 
the boys’. The lid was off. To hell with Victorian prudery 
and the need of chaperones. Adventure. Life. Death. 
Well, you know all about that.” 

“Before my time, worse luck,” said Julian. 

She touched his hand. 

“Lucky you! Don’t regret it. You might have been dead 
—and life’s good.” 

She married a boy in the Cavalry—Royal Dragoons— 
after a meeting or two in Boulogne, where she drove an am¬ 
bulance. They were married on leave, at St. Mary’s Abbot’s, 
a jolly wedding photographed in all the papers. Dicky was 
a dear, with blue eyes and a little crinkle in his hair, and a 
lisp—she pronounced it “lithp”—and they had laughed and 
lived as though it were a game of kiss-in-the-ring—babies, 
both of them. He had actually cried when he went back to 
his regiment, though it was miles behind the lines. “You 
won’t get killed, Dicky darling,” she had told him. “The 
cavalry’s a dud show in this war.” He was killed three days 
afterwards, near Cambrai, when they were put in, dis¬ 
mounted, into a nasty mess. 

“Rough luck!” said Julian. 


Heirs Apparent 113 

“Oh, I don , t know. Dicky was certain to make a mucker 
of life. He drank too much at twenty-two. Bit of a temper 
too at those times! But, of course, I cried myself sick. A 
year later I married Major Iffield.” 

“Why?” asked Julian. 

Evelyn Iffield thought that a very funny question. She 
laughed quite a good deal before answering it. 

“Why did I marry him? A man of forty-three then. Me 
twenty-one. For safety’s sake a little, I suppose. I could feel 
myself slipping down the slope. Ted seemed so strong, and 
solid, and respectable. He is strong and solid and respecta¬ 
ble and virtuous and good. I have a great reverence for 
him. I wonder how he can keep it up. I rebuke myself for 
not being more interested in his golf stories. I suffer his re¬ 
proaches meekly when I come home at four in the morning 
after a dance in town, or go driving down to Devonshire or 
devil knows where without asking his permission. I even 
suffer my mother-in-law—that female Iago!” 

“Unhappy?” asked Julian. 

“Restless,” said Mrs. Iffield. “Young. Eager for life.” 

That was her story, except that the General had died and 
left her this old house in Surrey—early seventeenth century 
—and enough money to play Bridge, buy frocks, and get a 
little fun on her own without begging from Ted. 

“Come and see me,” she said. “Bring Janet, or that girl 
Audrey, or that handsome, anxious father of yours.” 

“I’d rather come alone,” said Julian. “Other people spoil 
talk.” 

She laughed at him with a queer little look in her eyes. 

“Egoist! ... I don’t always talk so much. We play 
Bridge after dinner, and I’m rather good on the piano. In 
fact I might tell you that I play Chopin like an angel and 
rag-time like a devil. Any attraction for a young gentleman 
from Oxford?” 

“Lots,” said Julian. 

They went back to the garden party. 

Old Buckland was shaking hands with large numbers of 
ladies before getting into his Rolls-Royce. He held a large 
cigar between the plump fingers of his left hand. 


114 Heirs Apparent 

'‘England will pull through!” he was saying in his loud, 
genial voice. “I’m doing my best to help things on! A 
strong Army and Navy. No mercy for the Huns. A su¬ 
preme Air Force. Justice. Duty. Hard work. Down with 
Bolshevism. Merrie England! Sport! The old Traditions! 
. . . What a delightful little spot this is! Perryam, con¬ 
gratulations, my boy! All out of The Week, eh? Good! 
Good! Lady Longhurst—a delightful meeting! Charmed!” 

He waved his fat cigar to the assembled guests and made 
a magnificent departure, with beaming good will and his 
Rolls-Royce. His son Cyril stayed behind, and was a great 
favourite with the younger women. 


XV 


I T was an awkward situation regarding Major Iffield, as 
Julian found when he met the man in the eighteenth cen¬ 
tury house once belonging to General Hepplewhite, which 
was now Evelyn’s (she asked him to call her that), to which 
he went rather frequently after that talk at the garden party. 
For one thing, Major Iffield was Evelyn’s husband and al¬ 
though she was obviously bored with him, she seemed to 
have a curious regard for him—which she called “respect.” 
For the second thing it was impossible to smash a man to 
pulp or damage his features ever so slightly while accepting 
his hospitality, smoking his Turkish cigarettes, and drinking 
his admirable port. At the same time he decided to mention 
the matter. Audrey was involved as well as himself. 

Julian found his opportunity after three sets of tennis 
with Evelyn—she played amazingly well, as she did most 
things, so that Balliol had to look to its colours—followed 
by three cups of tea in the summer-house, alone with her. 
By a lucky chance her mother-in-law, who was a suspicious- 
looking old lady with an austere and somewhat hostile man¬ 
ner to Julian, had gone to Bournemouth for a week-end to 
stay with a niece or something. Evelyn rejoiced in her de¬ 
parture, and revelled in what she called the Escape from 
Espionage. She hadn’t ruffled a hair over the single at ten¬ 
nis, and looked perfectly marvellous, Julian thought, in a 
little white frock with a rosebud pattern which revealed her 
neck and arms. Their conversation was mainly on the ad¬ 
vantage or otherwise of early marriage in which she advised 
him on the whole against a precipitate adventure in matri¬ 
mony, despite his repeated assurance that the thought had 
never entered his head and that he considered himself abso¬ 
lutely immune from the microbe called love. It was at that 
stage of the conversation, interrupted by Evelyn’s incredu- 

115 


116 Heirs Apparent 

lous laughter and her threat to “learn” him if he wasn’t 
careful, that Major Iffield made his appearance across the 
tennis court in his usual golfing clothes. 

His large, good-natured face had a more florid look than 
usual, and he wiped his rather bullish neck with a coloured 
handkerchief of large size. 

“Hullo, child-wife,” he said to Evelyn, “corrupting the 
morals of another infant ?” 

Then he held out his big hand to Julian and said, “Hullo, 
Perryam. It’s kind of you to cheer up my little lady. She 
hates golf, and I bore her, and she gets lonely.” 

Julian said “Good afternoon” in a rather cold way which 
did not seem to be noticed by this beefy major man. Evelyn 
gave a little squeal of disgust when her husband bent down 
to kiss her neck. 

“Don’t you come pawing me until you’ve cooled down, 
you old monster. And not even then.” 

“Well, help me to cool down with a cup of tea,” said If¬ 
field good humouredly. 

“None in the pot, Old One. But like Patient Griselda 
I’ll go and ask the maids for some hot water.” 

“I’ll go,” said Julian. 

Major Iffield laughed and held him by the arm. 

“Don’t bother. I’m not here to be a nuisance.” 

“Tactless old buffer,” said Evelyn. “After all this time he 
doesn’t guess I want to powder my face.” 

She left them together and the Major offered Julian a 
cigarette, and asked him how he had got back from Henley 
with that pretty girl, Audrey Nye. 

Julian flushed angrily from the neck button of his tennis 
shirt to the roots of his fair hair. 

“Well, in fact, sir, I wanted to speak to you about that. 
It was hardly playing the game to spread the tale about 
the countryside.” 

“What tale, my lad?” 

The Major was blandly surprised and not at all ruffled. 

“I mean the fact that you happened to meet me in a pub 
at Henley with a friend of mine. What’s it got to do with 
the whole damned world?” 


Heirs Apparent 117 

“Not in the least, I agree. But what’s your trouble, my 
dear boy ?” 

Julian resented that “my dear boy” and “my lad.” Also 
he resented the fact that Major Iffield was Evelyn’s husband. 
He was too old, too dull, too gross. No wonder the poor 
kid was bored to tears sometimes. 

“A deuce of a lot of trouble both for me and Audrey 
Nye. Ridiculous scandalmongering from Surrey to Sussex. 
Parental alarms of the most annoying and fantastic absurd¬ 
ity.” 

Major Iffield laughed heartily with a loud guffaw. 

“You exaggerate, old man. I can’t bring myself in guilty 
of all that.” 

“That’s hardly true—sir—” 

The laughter died out of Major Iffield’s eyes and his 
mouth hardened. 

“Look here, youngster, I don’t like those words ‘hardly 
true.’ Too much like calling me a liar. I advise you to cut 
them out unless you want your neck broken.” 

Julian apologised. He had not meant to be discourteous. 
But he was rather peeved because the Major had said some¬ 
thing about Audrey Nye to his mother and that poisonous 
lady, Miss Raven. 

A friendly light came back into Major Iffield’s bland 
Saxon-looking eyes. 

“Oh, lord, yes! I do remember meeting that stalwart 
female, Miss Raven. She was prattling about her visit to 
Oxford and said she had met you on a walking tour with a 
girl undergraduate. ‘These young people are very uncon¬ 
ventional, don’t you think?’ she asked in her thin-lipped 
way. ‘And I didn’t like the look of the girl.’ That caught 
me out. ‘A very nice kid,’ I said. ‘I ran against them both 
at Henley and she seemed to me charming.’ An indiscretion, 
I admit. Sorry!” 

“Then there was my mother,” said Julian. 

Major Iffield scratched his head with whimsical distress. 

“Oh, Lord! Yes—I see you have a grievance against me. 
It slipped out when she said how much she missed you. 
. . . Evelyn will tell you I’m apt to put both feet into 


118 Heirs Apparent 

things. It’s my simplicity of mind. I was born without 
guile.” 

“Without brains,” thought Julian, but his hostility was 
softened by the obvious sincerity of the man and by his good 
humour. It was impossible not to return his laugh when he 
linked arms with Julian and made apology. 

“I’ve been the innocent cause of scandal, eh? Well that 
makes me feel damn silly with myself. If there’s anything 
I hate it’s village gossip. Poor little Eve suffers from 
that! . . . Come and have a whiskey. I’ll miss that tea.” 

He insisted upon Julian staying to dinner, and excused 
himself afterwards because he had to go to a rally of Boy 
Scouts. 

“Evelyn will play you some music,” he said, “if you’re 
fond of it. Personally I don’t profess to understand any¬ 
thing but ‘God Save the King’ and my regimental march.” 

“Both of which you whistle flat,” said Evelyn. 

“Never mind! I’m a hopeless old duffer, but an adoring 
husband to a restless little wife.” 

He took her hand and put it to his lips with a look of 
adoration which Julian thought was rather absurd in the 
eyes of this elderly and stout major-man. 

“Don’t stand on the order of your going,” said Evelyn, 
rather cruelly, “if you will prefer Boy Scouts to my Society!” 

“Oh, I say!” 

Major Iffield threatened to stay, after such a speech, but 
Evelyn pushed him out of the room by both shoulders. 

“October!” she said when he had gone. “And I’m April! 
He likes Boy Scouts, and duty, the Empire, and golf, and a 
snooze after supper while my dear mother-in-law keeps a 
watchful eye on him. I want life and young love! A nui¬ 
sance, isn’t it?” 

She put her head sideways and smiled at Julian in a mis¬ 
chievous way. Then she said, as though in answer to her 
own thoughts, “But I will be good!” 

She played some Chopin while Julian sat in a deck chair 
covered with flowered chintz watching her through the thin 
haze of his cigarette smoke. She played charmingly, with a 
professional touch, and looked even better than she played in 


Heirs Apparent 119 

the black frock she had put on for dinner, showing her 
ivory white neck and shoulders and her pretty arms. She 
wore a diamond star in her hair and her big eyes were very 
luminous as she played, with only two candles on her rose¬ 
wood piano and all the rest of the room in the twilight 
from long casement windows. This room with its panelled 
walls painted white and its old oak beams across the plas¬ 
tered ceiling was a perfect setting, Julian thought, for this 
girl at the piano who looked like one of Kneller’s portraits 
of a lady at the Stuart Court. She looked over to him pres¬ 
ently and slurred all her notes and laughed. 

“I’m boring you stiff! Get out the gramaphone. I’ll see 
how Oxford dances now.” 

She pushed some of the chairs back and in doing so 
knocked a little Dresden lady from a Chippendale table and 
broke it to bits. 

“Damn!” she cried. “That’s Ted’s favourite thing! . . . 
^Well, let’s hide the guilty secret and get on with the dance.” 

She threw the broken porcelain into the wooden coal-scut¬ 
tle, and shut the lid upon it hurriedly. Then she put a record 
on the gramaphone and held out her arms to Julian. 

They danced together for half an hour or more, only 
stopping to wind up the gramaphone and start a new tune. 
Julian prided himself on his ease and dignity as a dancing 
man, but Evelyn Iffield taught him to dance as never before. 
She was alive with the rhythm of the music, and her eyes 
danced, and her spirit. She swayed perhaps a little too 
much to suit the Oxford style, but Julian was thrilled by 
her grace and melody of movement, and by the ripples of 
laughter she gave when she teased him into new steps and 
took hairbreadth risks with a little marble figure of Mercury 
on a pedestal near the piano. 

“You’ll make a dancer,” she said. “We’ll do a trip to 
London one day and show ourselves in one of the night 
clubs. I’ll show you how I drive a car—and test your nerve! 
By moonlight, with a white road ahead. We’ll slip away 
from this old ghost house and the mother-in-law. It’s a 
long time since I had an escapade. What do you say, 
Julian? Are you game?” 


120 Heirs Apparent 

“Rather!” said Julian. “Who wouldn’t be with such an 
offer?” 

She put the tips of her fingers down the veins of his hand 
in a caressing way. 

“Nice boy! But, oh, so young and innocent. I’d hate to 
lead him astray.” 

Julian blushed because of the suggestion that he was only 
a sort of kid—a schoolboy. 

“That’s all right,” he said. “I’m old enough to take care 
of you.” 

She laughed and looked into his eyes. 

“I will be good!” she said again, as once before that eve- 
ning. 

Their dance was interrupted by a visitor. It was Cyril 
Buckland. He seemed surprised and rather startled to see 
Julian, and Julian expressed his own surprise, and annoy¬ 
ance. 

“Hullo, Buckland! I thought you were with my people 
to-night.” 

“Yes. I left early. Had a bit of a headache. Don’t give 
me away, old boy. I said I had some work to do. As a mat¬ 
ter of fact I was tempted by the lights in Evelyn’s windows.” 

“Well, it’s a long time since they lured you!” said Evelyn. 
“I thought you had deserted me for some other pretty lady! 
. . . Well, don’t look so guilty, but sit down and be bright.” 

Julian felt the whole evening spoilt by the intrusion of 
Cyril Buckland and he disliked the easy familiarity with 
which this fellow took Evelyn’s hand and gave it a little 
pat. He wondered also what Janet would say to it. The 
pleasure of the evening was further wrecked by two other 
people who arrived. They were a brother and sister whom 
the maid announced as Captain and Miss Harker. The man 
wore a dinner jacket lined with grey silk which Julian 
thought rather bad form. But he was a good-looking fellow 
of about thirty, with a clean-shaven, rather horsey-looking 
face. The girl was a blonde, with tired eyes and a thin face, 
with little lines about the lips. 

“Hullo, Billy!” cried Evelyn. 


Heirs Apparent 121 

“Hullo, Eve!” said the man. “We’ve driven down to see 
if you’re still alive in this mouldy old house.” 

He kissed her boldly on the right arm above the elbow. 

“Now then,” said Evelyn. “None of your war-time man¬ 
ners, Billy. I’m a respectable married woman.” 

“How many times ?” asked the man. “I forget.” 

Julian desired to kick the fellow. That kiss on Evelyn’s 
arm was the damnedest impudence. He was sorry she ac¬ 
cepted it so quietly. The fellow had a smiling insolence 
which Julian disliked extremely, and his sister was not more 
attractive, he thought. She spoke in a tired, affected voice, 
and after kissing Evelyn on the lips, asked for a whiskey 
and soda. 

“Billy drove like a maniac from town. I’m chilled to the 
bone by the wind he raised.” 

“How’s the cave man?” asked Billy. 

“Still playing golf and drilling Boy Scouts and doing his 
duty to God, man, and little me.” 

“Well, you ought to be grateful,” said Billy Harker, 
“after your war-time life and all its iniquities.” 

Evelyn pointed an accusing finger at him. 

“Anyhow I saved your life, my dear. If I hadn’t driven 
like a whirlwind with that ambulance, the doctors at Num¬ 
ber 24 stationary hospital wouldn’t have found you alive, 
with that shell splinter in your tummy.” 

Billy Harker shook his head sadly. 

“An unfortunate rescue! Think of all the money you 
would have saved my unfortunate father if you had driven 
more slowly! Think of all the girls’ hearts that wouldn’t 
have been broken by my excessive beauty!” 

“Shut up, Billy!” said his sister. “You know you’re jolly 
grateful to dear old Evelyn!” 

“And think of the agony I should have been spared if I’d 
died ignorant of your treachery to our young love by marry¬ 
ing the cave man. How many times did I propose to you 
at Staples?” 

“Dozens!” said Evelyn. “And to every nurse in your 
ward. They all did.” 


122 Heirs Apparent 

“How many times did you refuse me because I couldn’t 
afford to provide you with the luxury which is the very 
breath of your beautiful nostrils ?” 

Evelyn lifted up her white arms with a big, laughing 
sigh. 

“Was it all a thousand years ago, Billy, or only five?” 

“Ten million,” said Billy Harker. “You and I are the 
oldest inhabitants of this wicked old planet.” 

He mouthed and mumbled like a senile and decrepit man, 
to the great enjoyment of Evelyn Iffield. 

The talk drifted into “The War.” Cyril Buckland joined 
in. Even Harker’s sister, who had served in a canteen at 
Amiens. Julian felt out of it, as always when the talk was 
on that stale old subject by people who had been through it, 
and once again, as many times before, he regretted his youth 
which had made him miss the biggest experience of life, by 
a year or two. Evelyn forgot his presence in the room. 
She was excited by old memories of the hectic days and 
nights of war time at the Base in France. 

“It was a great adventure! Life is appallingly dull, and 
all the thrill’s gone!” 

Some of Billy Harker’s stories were rather blue, but 
Evelyn laughed at them, and Julian felt uncomfortable. He 
did not like this hark back to the atmosphere of cabarets 
and dancing halls in France. There was something rather 
beastly in the idea that Evelyn had been mixed up in it. 
And this man and his sister and Cyril Buckland had a sug¬ 
gestive way of talk which was rather poisonous, he thought. 
It was not so much what they said as the kind of sinister 
undercurrent of their conversation, and little winks and guf¬ 
faws. Evelyn was too elegant and gracious a thing to be 
smirched by that sort of stuff. Fortunately she. broke the 
evil spell of it by an abrupt interruption. 

“One member of this company is extremely bored! Sorry, 
Julian. Billy has no respect for you or me or any unsoiled 
soul. Let’s silence him by a game of Bridge.” 

They played for higher points than Julian quite liked, es¬ 
pecially as he and Evelyn lost. His pocket book was thinner 
when he left the house after the return of the Major who 


Heirs Apparent 123 

looked rather startled at the desolate appearance of the room 
—Evelyn had forgotten to turn back the carpet and put 
back the chairs—and by this company of card players. 

“I didn’t know you expected a party,” he said rather re¬ 
proachfully to Evelyn. “You might have told me.” 

“I’m not good at intelligent anticipation, old dear!” she 
answered gaily. “These people were uninvited guests, taking 
pity on my exile. You’ve met Billy before, so don’t pretend 
you’ve forgotten him!” 

“I must go,” said Julian. “It’s getting latish.” 

She gave him her hand, and squeezed his a little, so that 
he felt a thrill up his arm. 

“The League of Youth!” she whispered, “and don’t forget 
that little joy-ride.” 

Julian walked home in the moonlight, a distance of four 
miles. All the way he thought of Evelyn Iffield. She was 
unlike any other girl he had ever known, so full of gaiety 
and grace, so alarmingly alluring. And he was frightfully 
sorry for her, mated to that elderly lump of a man, so hope¬ 
lessly dull, so utterly incapable of giving her the good time 
she had a right to expect. 

October and April—what a mating! . . . Poor kid! 


XVI 


J ULIAN abandoned the idea of writing an epic on Eng¬ 
land after the Napoleonic War. It was too big a sub¬ 
ject for a beginner, he decided, after several strenuous 
efforts which produced a number of disconnected notes and 
three rather feeble lyrics. He proposed to turn his atten¬ 
tion to a three act play dealing with University life. As 
far as he knew it had never been done before and it seemed 
an excellent chance for those gifts of satire and realism 
which had given him a reputation in the Isis. He would 
have a go at the Dons and reveal them in all their pom¬ 
posity and narrow minded absurdity as exiles from life, 
hopelessly cloistered, utterly aloof from modern ideas, and 
totally ignorant of the undergraduate mind. He would 
also turn the search-light of truth upon the various types 
of undergraduate, and especially upon the most poisonous 
type—the sesthetes with the : r perfumes, their strange 
drinks, their cult of decadence. There would be a great 
ragging scene. ... It was really a noble idea. 

But meanwhile he was subject to the irritations and inter¬ 
ruptions of family life, which from the time of Socrates, 
and indeed before him, thrust their pettiness into the nerve 
system of genius. His father was seriously disconcerted 
by the little debts which he had contracted at Oxford, now 
sent in for immediate settlement by rather impertinent 
tradesmen. The whole sum amounted to no more than 
three hundred pounds which in Julian's opinion was rea¬ 
sonable, and almost paltry. Clatworthy and others had 
marvelled at his moderation. But his father had gone 
through the bills with an air of pained surprise, as though 
Julian had been guilty of debauchery and a life of sin. 
There had been rather hot words between them after the 
mild preliminaries from his father of “Look here, old 

124 


Heirs Apparent 125 

man—” and “I must say, Julian—” The wine bill from 
Butler’s seemed to stick in his throat most of all, though, 
as Julian explained with outward calm and inward exas¬ 
peration, it was impossible to accept hospitality without 
returning it. 

“But, my dear fellow, it’s outrageous! Fifteen dozen of 
champagne—why you could swim in it! In our early mar¬ 
ried days your mother and I didn’t pay as much as that in 
house rent for a whole year.” 

“Very likely,” said Julian. “But you brought me up as 
a gentleman, and it’s quite an expensive hobby—and, on the 
whole, a foolish mistake.” 

His father’s rather haggard face flushed hotly, and he 
spoke with unusual harshness. 

“Dash it, Julian, mind what you’re saying. Do you mean 
to suggest I wasn’t a gentleman?” 

“A journalist,” said Julian with a supercilious smile. 
“Hardly one of the high caste in which Janet and I have 
been brought up—without our asking for it. Super-snobs, 
with expensive notions.” 

“You will have to cut those notions down,” said his 
father. “I won’t stand for them much longer. These bills 
border on dishonesty, Julian. I gave you a handsome allow¬ 
ance and believed you were keeping to it. Now you spring 
these debts on me without as much as a word of excuse.” 

“No excuse is needed,” said Julian. “They were neces¬ 
sary to my position at Balliol. Of course if you use the 
word ‘dishonesty,’ no farther explanation is possible, and 
I’m damned if I’ll say a word more.” 

For the life of him he could not help raising his voice, 
though he hated “scenes,” and that “I’m damned” rang out 
stridently. 

His father became pale and rather dismayed. He put his 
arm round Julian’s shoulder, with an affectionate hug. 

“Sorry, old boy, I didn’t mean that! And you know I’m 
not stingy towards you. It’s not the money I’m worrying 
about. Only the principle of the thing. Your carelessness 
about accounts.” 

“Oh, hell!” said Julian, and he sloped out of the room. 


126 Heirs Apparent 

But this sort of thing was disturbing, all the same. He 
could not help brooding about it when he ought to have 
been getting down to his three act play. That word “dis¬ 
honesty” was intolerable and outrageous. It was utterly 
unjustified. He had been perfectly straight and not given 
a thought to these necessary expenses. His father shouldn’t 
have sent him to Oxford if he didn’t like the cost of it. 
Pure waste of money, of course, but if his father liked to 
buck about “my boy at Balliol,” that was his affair. Now 
he tried to shift the responsibility onto his son’s shoulders. 
Damned unfair. He mentioned the matter to his mother, 
and to his extreme annoyance she upheld his father’s point 
of view. 

“You might have given us a hint about these additional 
bills,” she said, reproachfully. “It was a bit mean piling 
up debts and saying nothing about it.” 

He hated that word “mean” as much as his father’s accu¬ 
sation of dishonesty. 

“It’s you that are mean,” he said hotly. “What the devil 
all this fuss is about I can’t imagine. The Governor is 
earning pots of money out of his filthy rag, and now looks 
as if I’d robbed the till.” 

“Look here, old lad,” said Mrs. Perryam, “not so much 
of your ‘What the devil’ to me. I’ve a bit of a temper of 
my own when I’m roused, and don’t you forget it.” 

She flashed her eyes at him, and made a comical grimace 
which made him smile in spite of himself, though he was 
still very angry. 

“I apologise for bad language, mother. But the Gov¬ 
ernor’s attitude of mind would make a saint swear.” 

“You’re ungrateful creatures, you young people of to¬ 
day,” said Mrs. Perryam. “We spoil you, that’s the trou¬ 
ble. Pander to you, you little wretches!” 

Julian raised his blonde eyebrows. 

“I fail to see the pandering. It’s the unfortunate off¬ 
spring that have to pander to their parents’ prejudices in 
their querulous old age.” 

Mrs. Perryam gasped at these last words, and made a 
rush for Julian to pull his hair. 


Heirs Apparent 127 

“Querulous old age! Me! If that isn’t the worst insult!” 

She tugged his hair by the handful, until he cried for 
mercy. 

“I was speaking generally, mother. Oh, Lord! You’ll 
always be young and giddy. As it is Janet and I have to 
keep a careful eye on you because of all the people who 
fall in love with you. The number of your victims— 
Leave go of my hair, for Heaven’s sake!” 

“I’ll make a victim of you one of these days,” said Mrs. 
Perryam, darkly. But she blushed rather deeply, all the 
same. 

It was perfectly true that Julian and Janet were becoming 
perturbed by the number of their mother’s admirers, and 
especially by the audacity of one of them. That was 
another cause of interruption along the steep and narrow 
path of literary inspiration. 

It was Janet who had first raised the question, much to 
Julian’s mirth at first, but afterwards leaving uneasy sus¬ 
picions and troubled thoughts. Janet had desired private 
converse with him the morning after the garden party, and 
he had followed her into the library, wondering why she 
looked so mysterious, with a little secret amusement in her 
blue doll’s eyes. She locked the door and said, “That’s 
all right. Now we can talk.” 

“I don’t want to talk,” said Julian. “I want to think, 
which is not one of your habits, I believe.” 

She ignored his brotherly insult, and spoke in a whisper 
as though revealing frightful things. 

“Julian, something perfectly appalling is happening in 
this household. Under our very noses. I think you ought 
to know.” 

“Has Grandfather taken to drink, or kissed one of the 
servant maids?” asked Julian, calmly and unafraid. 

“Worse than that,” said Janet, trying to look horrified, 
but giving a little squeal of laughter at the same time. 
“Mother is having a love affair.” 

“Good God!” said Julian. 

“Unless we’re very careful, Julian, you and I are going 
to be witnesses in a very unpleasant divorce case.” 


128 Heirs Apparent 

“And that’s the little sister from the convent school,” 
said Julian. 

Janet pooh-poohed the innocence of convent schools. The 
girls talked among themselves. Not even a convent could 
keep out the world. Anyhow she had eyes in her head, 
and she had seen—very distinctly—that Lord Cornford had 
kissed her mother’s hand in the rose garden. She had also 
observed the fact that during the past month her mother 
and Lord Cornford—the dissolute old villain!—had met 
almost every day on some plausible pretext. He had 
brought her a novel to read, and came to fetch it away 
again. He had desired to consult her about the blight on 
his roses and taken her twice to the Grange for that pur¬ 
pose. They had met at other people’s houses, including the 
Iffields’. That creature, Evelyn Iffield, was probably con¬ 
niving. An utterly non-moral little beast.” 

“Rot!” said Julian. “She’s charming.” 

“Yes,” said Janet, “I forgot. You’re rather gone on her 
yourself.” 

“Good Heavens!” said Julian. “These convent kids!” 

Janet produced further evidence of an alarming and in¬ 
timate friendship between Lord Cornford and her mother, 
culminating in that kissing of hands in the rose garden, 
when her mother had blushed to the eyes like an amorous 
schoolgirl and the old man— 

“Not so old!” interjected Julian—had behaved with the 
love-stricken gaze of an elderly Romeo. 

“What makes it so dangerous,” said Janet, “is mother’s 
susceptibility—you remember that affair with the curate? 
—and old Cornford’s courtly manners and wonderful eyes 
—like a handsome hawk.” 

Julian roared with laughter, and then told Janet that she 
ought to be ashamed of herself. She looked like a German 
doll and talked like Elinor Glyn. 

“Well, all I can say is, ‘Watch out/ ” said Janet. Then 
she added with a far-off smile in her deep blue eyes, “Of 
course there’s one thing about it. It makes things easy for 
us. It gives us a handle if mother plays the Spartan too 
much when I stay out late with Cyril or others.” 


Heirs Apparent 129 

“You’re a Lucrezia Borgia,” said Julian, really shocked, 
“You’re qualifying for a place among the Hundred Worst 
Women.” 

Janet received his rebuke calmly. 

“I look facts in the face, Julian. Why I’m so anxious 
about mother is because she belongs to the elder genera¬ 
tion. We of the younger crowd know how to take care of 
ourselves. We have sensible ideas about things. We are 
realists. But people born in Queen Victoria’s reign, or 
even King Edward’s, are hopelessly romantic and go off 
the deep end at the slightest provocation.” 

Julian was thoughtful. He was impressed by his sister’s 
unexpected knowledge of life. 

“There’s something in that,” he said. “Do you think I 
ought to say a word to the mater?” 

“Heavens, no! She might fly off the handle, and do the 
wildest things. Just watch and take care of her. I shall 
make it my particular responsibility.” 

Julian laughed again at the absurdity of the whole idea. 
But secretly he was perturbed. He couldn’t help noticing 
that the very next afternoon Lord Cornford called with a 
big bunch of Lady Godivas and presented them to his 
mother with a few gallant words. Janet called him an old 
man, but he was not so preposterously ancient. Forty- 
eight, perhaps, not yet completely senile, and still immensely 
good-looking, like a Norman knight with a hawk nose and 
very bright, roving hazel eyes and a deeply bronzed skin. 

He went out of his way to talk in a friendly fashion to 
Julian, not observing the somewhat glum and guarded 
manner in which his advances were met. He told some 
rather thrilling stories of life on the Indian frontier, and 
was reminiscent of London in the old days of the Boer 
War. “Jemmy’s” seemed to be the gay haunt then—the old 
St. James’s Restaurant—and he said there was no such fun 
now as in the gilded halls of the Ritz and Piccadilly. 

“The life seems to have gone out of London. We’re all 
so devilish poor nowadays and, of course, as far as I’m 
concerned, I miss the faces of old pals. They were mostly 
wiped out in the War. I walk with ghosts in Pall Mall.” 


130 Heirs Apparent 

He turned to Julian’s mother, and said, “This boy of 
yours was lucky to escape the massacre of the innocents.” 

Mrs. Perryam touched Julian’s hand. 

“One of my boys—” she said, and her eyes filled with 
tears. 

Lord Cornford was distressed by his careless words which 
had re-opened the wound in a mother’s heart. 

“Forgive me,” he said very tenderly, and his own eyes 
had a little moisture in them. Then he plunged into the 
subject of the political situation, in order to change the 
topic, and spoke fiercely of Labour and its Socialistic pro¬ 
gramme. 

“If Labour comes into power—and they seem to have a 
chance—England will sink to the level of a Boer Republic. 
The Empire will break to bits as sure as fate. As for 
people of our class, we shall be skinned alive as far as 
money goes. Even now we’re being taxed out of exist¬ 
ence.” 

He turned to Julian and flashed a question at him. 

“What are you going to do about it, young man?” 

“Me?” said Julian. “I don’t think I have much say in 
the matter.” 

Lord Cornford tapped him on the knee. 

“That’s where you’re wrong! It’s you young men on 
the threshold of life who are going to decide the destiny 
of England—and the world—one way or the other. You’re 
the coming leaders. Are you going to crawl before Revo¬ 
lutionary Labour, surrender to pacifists and international 
Jews, deliver up the liberty of the individual and the rights 
of private property to a gang of Sidney Webbs, Ramsay 
Macdonalds, Philip Snowdens and the theorists who pre¬ 
pare the way for the Bolsheviks, or are you going to fight 
for the old traditions of fair play, justice, and national 
honour? Upon your answer depends the fate of civilisa¬ 
tion.” 

Julian permitted himself an ironical laugh. 

“I didn’t know I was such a highly important person,” 
he said carelessly. 

Lord Cornford appealed to Mrs. Perryam. 


Heirs Apparent 131 

“Don’t you think I’m right? Your good-looking son 
ought to begin to take these things seriously.” 

Mrs. Perryam smiled at Julian. 

“The young men of to-day decline to take things seri¬ 
ously, I’m afraid. Perhaps we expect too much of them, 
Lord Cornford. You can’t put old heads on young shoul¬ 
ders. Give them time!” 

Lord Cornford replied with a little shake of the head. 

“Time burns, dear lady! England—and Europe—is 
drifting towards disaster. Capital is being crippled. The 
old foundations of security are being sapped.” 

“And trees are being cut down ruthlessly,” said Julian, 
getting a dig in at the destructive work of this impecunious 
peer who for the sake of ready money was spoiling the 
beauty of the countryside. 

Lord Cornford flushed angrily. 

“I have to live somehow,” he answered sharply. “Taxes 
mean axes for those who have a bit of timber.” 

Mrs. Perryam looked pained by her son’s discourtesy, 
and asked him coldly whether he had not better go and do 
some work instead of wasting his time in talking on sub¬ 
jects of which he knew nothing. It was a harsher rebuke 
than he had expected, and Julian flushed at it as though 
she had hit him across the face. He rose angrily with his 
hands in his pockets. 

“I’ll leave you and Lord Cornford to settle civilisation 
and the scandalous behaviour of the younger generation.” 

He spoke with bitter sarcasm which afterwards he re¬ 
gretted as going beyond the limits of good form. His 
mother gave a shrill little laugh as he strode away. 

In the library to which he went for a book he found his 
grandfather standing at the French window looking into 
the garden. The old man turned as Julian came in, and 
spoke querulously. 

“That fellow Cornford is here again! He’s always here 
now. In my opinion he’s getting too fond of your mother. 
I don’t believe in these Platonic friendships with married 
women. I wouldn’t allow it if I were your father.” 

Julian was astounded and dismayed. So his grandfather 


132 Heirs Apparent 

had got the same idea as Janet’s in his head. It seemed 
likely that even the servants were talking! Perhaps he had 
been an unobservant fool, so wrapped up in his literary 
ideas that he had failed to notice this alarming situation. 
And yet the thing was too utterly absurd—too preposterous 
and scandalous for words. His mother, who had lectured 
him about Audrey and had old-fashioned ideas of morality 
in spite of her easy going ways and good-humoured toler¬ 
ance, and love of laughter and the social whirligig. No! 
It was an infamous suggestion. 

He spoke with real fury to his grandfather. 

“How dare you say such a thing! You ought to be 
turned out of the house—after all the mater’s kindness to 
you!” 

The old gentleman wiped his eyeglasses carefully. 

“Everybody’s against me in this house,” he said, with 
melancholy resignation. “It’s quite likely you’ll turn me 
out to die in the workhouse. I expect it. But I see things. 
There’s no discipline, no duty, no morality, in this place. 
It’s a house built upon sand, Julian, and divided against 
itself. Don’t blame me if it falls to pieces. How can a 
household prosper when it’s Godless? When its children 
revolt against authority and eat the bread of idleness? 
When its mother runs after Society and neglects the 
spiritual care of her offspring. In my young days—” 

“Your young days,” said Julian, “must have been like a 
Baptist chapel on a frosty morning with Stiggins in the 
pulpit and a cold in his nose.” 

He seized his book and left the room with a slam of the 
door. But in his own room he was unable to read or to 
think out the plot of his three act play. 


XVII 


C LATWORTHY came at last with the Metallurgique 
which he drove up to the house in magnificent style 
with a hairpin turn outside the front door. He was elabo¬ 
rately polite to Mrs. Perryam and Janet and hilarious at 
the sight of Julian dozing after lunch in a deck chair with 
a book on the grass by his side. 

“Good old Literature!” he said with enthusiasm. “If 
everybody didn't know I can't spell I’d have a dash at it 
myself. Such an active career for a restless fellow like 
me!” 

“How's Oxford?” asked Julian. 

Oxford seemed to be much the same, but if anything 
slightly better or worse, according to one's point of view. 
Clatworthy narrated the latest rag of the Bullingdon. Very 
amusing, but rather costly. Young Banstead of the House 
had borrowed a car from another fellow, taken five men, 
including Clatworthy, to Maidenhead for a little dinner at 
the Riviera where they had encountered two little actress 
girls who were absolute darlings, and after a merry time 
the party had returned to Oxford at midnight and sent the 
borrowed car on top gear down the High, without a driver. 
It had gone quite steadily for twenty yards and then made 
a swerve and landed bang at the front door of the Mitre. 
No end of a row! The car in bits all over the road, and 
the front door of the Mitre—a thousand years old or some¬ 
thing—deeply dinted. 

“Childish,” said Julian. “Not even funny.” 

Clatworthy agreed that the affair was childish. Even 
primitive, he thought. But quite funny at the moment. 

He was interested to hear that Julian had met his aunt, 
the Countess of Longhurst, and vastly amused at her com¬ 
ments upon his character. 

“An old dragon,” he said. “She used to be a bit of a rip 
133 


134 Heirs Apparent 

in her time, they tell me. There was one affair with an 
uncle of young Banstead when he was Home Secretary or 
something in the Paleolithic age. You can read it in the 
early Saxon Chronicles, I believe. That’s why she’s such 
a fierce old moralist now, and insists on saying morning 
prayers to all the maidservants, the butler, and the last 
remaining footmen. Once she flung her footstool at my 
head because I winked through my fingers in prayer time 
at the youngest maid—no end of a pretty kid. Still, I will 
say my aunt is a generous old creature in spite of her little 
oddities. She always sends me a tenner for my birthday 
and tells me not to spend it on women or drink.” 

“And of course you accept the money and reject the 
advice,” said Julian. 

Clatworthy lamented that his reputation was far worse 
than his blameless career justified. 

“I’m really a serious little fellow,” he said, “masking a 
simple and earnest soul under the whimsicality of a monkey¬ 
like face inherited from noble but dissolute ancestors.” 

He proceeded to perform his monkey tricks on the front 
lawn, enormously to the astonishment and delight of one 
of Mrs. Perryam’s maids who flew giggling down the 
pergola. 

“They all love little Tarzan,” said Clatworthy. “But 
meanwhile what are we going to do to pass the remainder 
of this priceless day? What about a theatre in town with 
any lovely ladies you happen to be favouring at the mo¬ 
ment ?” 

Julian thought rather deeply. There was no doubt that 
Evelyn Ifiield would welcome the idea with enthusiasm. 
But he was not quite sure that the Major would be equally 
enthusiastic, or Evelyn’s watchful mother-in-law. Still, the 
poor girl was pining for a day out from that ghostly old 
house, and Clatworthy would amuse her a good deal. 

Clatworthy made his own suggestion, with more shyness 
than his previous language of gallantry had suggested as 
an element of his character. 

“Any chance of getting hold of Audrey Nye?” he asked 


Heirs Apparent 135 

with an air of casual enquiry, but a sudden flush of colour. 
“She doesn’t live a thousand miles from here, I believe.” 

“Exactly twelve,” said Julian, “and a very bright idea!” 

Julian decided to “collect” Audrey first, and then return 
to Evelyn Iffield’s on the way to town. He drove the 
Metallurgique, glad to feel the little old wheel in his hands 
again. Clatworthy utterly repudiated the idea that he had 
been the cause of its disaster, and roared with laughter at 
Julian’s description of the walk to Henley and the subse¬ 
quent scandal at Hartland and Gorse Hill. 

“Funny people, parents,” said Julian. “They simply can’t 
understand any comradeship between men and girls with¬ 
out suspecting passionate episodes.” 

Clatworthy was equally astounded at the preposterous¬ 
ness of this point of view. But he added a little judicial 
comment. 

“Of course, to be utterly frank, old boy, passionate epi¬ 
sodes do occasionally arise. One or two have arisen un¬ 
expectedly in my own innocent career. But my view is 
that it depends on the girl—every time. Now you and 
Audrey, or I and Audrey, could walk through tropical 
forests without any kind of hecticity. Why? Because she 
doesn’t stand for that kind of thing. She’s the modern 
type, I suppose—frank, healthy, commonsensed, looking at 
life with larger eyes than our mammas or grandmammas 
who observed it from the lifted curtains of Victorian 
boudoirs. They weren’t allowed to meet men on equal 
terms, so that they were alarmed, excited, or over bold 
when they happened to be alone with a boy.” 

“Good Heavens!” said Julian, “you’re becoming a phi¬ 
losopher !” 

“This foolish face of mine,” said Clatworthy modestly, 
“conceals an amazing amount of intellectual profundity. 
I’ve lately been looking into the meaning of life. I may 
be wrong, but it seems to me a strangely ridiculous affair. 
Take, for instance, that late little war in the world.” 

“For Heaven’s sake don’t!” said Julian. “The mere men¬ 
tion of it makes me sick.” 


136 Heirs Apparent 

“l agree,” said Clatworthy, assuming the grave and por¬ 
tentous expression of a Lord of Appeal. “I concur. Often 
have I vomited in listening to the elder brothers of younger 
brothers describing their exploits in the trenches. . . . ‘Do 
you remember that morning the jolly old Huns dropped a 
packet of five-point-nines over the support line and made 
a mess of the sergeant major?’ . . . Such conversation 
wearies my impatient brain. At the same time, dear old 
lad, we mustn’t forget the damned thing did happen!” 

“What then?” asked Julian. 

“What then, indeed? That’s what I’ve begun to ask 
myself in secret moments of the night after lobster salad 
at Fuller’s in the High. What then? That is to say, are 
you and I drifting towards the time when our 'beautiful 
young bodies may be made a mess of by five-point-nines 
in another support line? If so, why? If not, why not? 
I know a fellow in the Foreign Office—” 

“For God’s sake!” said Julian. “You’re as bad as the 
Old People at my mother’s garden party. Prophets of 
doom!” 

Clatworthy made a face like a mediaeval saint in a stained 
glass window, using his straw hat as a halo. 

“Woe unto you, ye children of iniquity!” he said. “Woe 
unto ye jazzers and saxophonists!” 

Then he burst forth into a song about a cat in a carpet 
bag, and later astonished an errand boy in Guildford High 
Street by addressing him as Archibald and asking after 
his mother. 

Outside the vicarage in Clandon there was a shock for 
both of them. Several furniture vans were drawn up, and 
the weedy path was strewn with bedroom chairs, wash- 
stands, and tables. Round the gate some small boys and 
girls had gathered and Julian observed Miss Raven—the 
lady who had spread scandal about him—observing from 
her garden opposite. 

“It looks like the flitting,” said Julian. 

He had already told Clatworthy of Audrey’s astonishing 
father who was giving up his living as a convert to the 
Catholic Church. 


Heirs Apparent 137 

Mr. Nye came down the garden path carrying a velvet 
backed chair and followed by the two little girls, Julia and 
Celia, each carrying a footstool, with an air of gravity and 
boredom. Mr. Nye had discarded his clerical collar and 
also his coat. He looked boyish, energetic, hot, and happy, 
and waved a friendly hand to Julian when he caught sight 
of him at the garden gate. 

“Hullo, Perryam! We’re breaking up the old home, you 
see. Lares et penates! eh? Well, it’s sad in a way, I admit 
that. We’ve been happy here, but God is as near us by 
town as by country— 

“‘He drives them east, he drives them west, between the dark and 
light. 

He pastures them in city pens, he leads them home at night. 

The towering trams, the threaded trains, like shuttles to and fro—■ 

—Celia, my* darling, don’t put that footstool where every 
blessed soul is going to fall over it!” 

“I think I’ll sit on it,” said Celia. “This moving makes 
me tired!” 

She threw her pigtails over her shoulders and sat on the 
footstool in the centre of the pathway and said, “How do 
you do?” very politely to Julian. 

Julian introduced Clatworthy to Mr. Nye. 

“Is Audrey about?” he asked. 

“Very much about,” said Mr. Nye. “Upstairs, down¬ 
stairs, and in my lady’s chamber. I don’t know what I 
should do without her. Especially as she has to comfort 
her poor mother who is very much upset about this affair, 
poor darling!” 

“Do you think we might carry off Miss Audrey to do a 
theatre in town, sir?” asked Clatworthy very politely. 
“She and I were good friends at Oxford. I’m sure a little 
binge would do her a bit of good and relieve the situation.” 

Mr. Nye laughed heartily, thrust his fingers through his 
chestnut curls, and sat down on one of the chairs in the 
garden path. 

“You could carry me off with impunity. And I’d love 


138 Heirs Apparent 

to come on a binge with you, young man. But if you take 
Audrey, I’m undone. We’re all undone. She’s the moving 
spirit. Without her we don’t move, but sit disconsolate in 
this wreckage.” 

“Well, that’s very hard luck,” said Clatworthy. 

Then he waved his hand to a figure in the front hall and 
said, “Hullo, Audrey! Cheerio! We’re the champion fur¬ 
niture lifters come to carry out the grand piano.” 

Audrey darted out of the house, with an excited cry at 
the sight of Julian and Clatworthy. She wore a blue over¬ 
all over her frock, and her left cheek had a black smudge, 
and she looked hot and harassed. 

“You’ve come at the last act of the tragedy,” she said, 
laughing. “Father is the King’s jester making merry in 
the midst of universal ruin. He positively likes it. Nero 
fiddling while Rome burns.” 

“Not I,” said Mr. Nye. “But you must admit it has its 
comic side.” 

“I don’t admit it. The whole thing’s an outrage to civili¬ 
sation, and the grand piano is firmly fixed in the drawing¬ 
room door.” 

She looked ruefully at Julian and Clatworthy. 

“There isn’t even a cup of tea to offer you. Johnny, make 
a monkey-face, or I’ll burst into tears.” 

Clatworthy obliged, and added to his performance by 
scratching himself, so that Audrey laughed in an hysterical 
way. 

“Where are you going to?” asked Julian after this epi¬ 
sode. 

She gave him an address in Clapham—“a suburb on the 
south side of London,” she explained to Julian whose 
knowledge of London was limited to Piccadilly and May- 
fair. 

“It sounds pretty awful,” he said. “How do you get to 
such a place?” 

“Facilis descensus Averni” answered Audrey, with the 
classical erudition of a young lady who had been sent down 
from Somerville and the tragic gloom of Sarah Bernhardt 
in one of her death scenes. 


Heirs Apparent 139 

“I think I’ll go on the movies to escape the awful 
squalor,” she added. 

Clatworthy had a better idea than that. He suggested it 
as a brilliant inspiration as soon as Mr. Nye had retired 
into the house to fetch another chair, while the furniture 
men came staggering out and dropping beads of sweat under 
the grand piano. 

“Look here, sweet thing. Why not do a bunk from this 
domestic chaos and marry little Tarzan? I’m ugly, but. very 
willing. Poor, but, oh, so dishonest!” 

He spoke earnestly, with an air of desperate sincerity 
beneath his absurdity of language. 

Audrey blushed furiously and laughed with a little break 
in her voice. 

“Johnny! You ridiculous brat! What would your noble 
Pa say?—and your terrific Aunts? They wouldn’t even 
give you the usual shilling.” 

Clatworthy was prepared to risk it. If the worst came 
to the worst, they could hire a piano organ. Audrey could 
wind the blooming handle, and he could sit on the top 
doing the monkey stunt. They would make heaps of 
money, and play it under the windows of his father’s house 
in Eaton Place until for very shame he opened the front 
door and invited them to bed and breakfast. What a 
scheme! 

Audrey laughed at it until the tears came into her eyes. 
But she turned down the scheme with a levity which de¬ 
jected Clatworthy. 

Further melancholy was caused him by Mr. Nye, who 
had been asked to desist from his furniture moving exploits 
by the foreman, with the rough suggestion that he was 
messing up the whole damn business by bringing out the 
wrong things first and getting in the way of the working 
men, to say nothing of violating trade Union rules. Forced 
into compulsory idleness, he took Clatworthy away from 
Audrey and on the bare boards of the room that had been 
his study questioned that young man on the subject of his 
soul. As Clatworthy told Julian afterwards, the ex¬ 
clergyman spoke with a sweetness and simplicity of faith 


140 Heirs Apparent 

in the love of God and the spiritual chance of youth in a 
sin-stricken world which caused an Oxford undergraduate 
to feel the bite of conscience in the centre of his abdomen 
in a very painful way. 

“As a matter of fact, old man/’ he confessed to Julian 
afterwards, “when a fellow like me comes up against a 
Man of Faith with a sublime confidence in divine* love, it’s 
extraordinarily embarrassing and disconcerting. Even the 
Bullingdon Club seems to lose that importance in the 
scheme of things which otherwise sustains one’s moral 
4 ?ride. Audrey’s father made poor little Tarzan feel like 
that fellow in some Bible story which I mugged up for 
‘Divvers.’ ‘Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldst enter 
under my roof/ Amazing bird! Embraces poverty for 
conscience’ sake as happily as I would hug a pretty girl if 
I weren’t afraid she’d clout my ears!” 

“Yes,” said Julian, “and drag his family to ruin and 
misery with the utter carelessness of an egotistical lunatic.” 

The capture of Clatworthy by Mr. Nye left Julian alone 
with Audrey. They sat together on a garden seat while 
Julia and Celia marched in and out of the house at the 
heels of the furniture men carrying their own particular 
treasures. 

Audrey asked him how “literature” was going and smiled 
when he said “Not over well. Too many domestic inter¬ 
ruptions.” She protested that family life was a frightful 
tyranny which destroyed all liberty of ideas and the divine 
right of self-expression. 

“Fathers and mothers are a terrible handicap to their 
children,” she declared, and then wondered why some dis¬ 
pensation of Providence could not do away with the neces¬ 
sity of such relationship. 

“Look at my father!” she said. “Simply because he is 
my father—through no fault of my own—I have to sur¬ 
render my scheme of life to his ridiculous authority. 
Where he goes I have to go—even to such a place as Clap- 
ham. Because he prefers poverty to comparative comfort 
Fve got to be poor! Could anything be more unreason¬ 
able?” 


Heirs Apparent 141 

She laughed at the enormous unreason of it, or at some 
flaw in her own argument, and then was serious and con¬ 
fessed that even with a sense of humour the situation was 
really tragic. Her poor mother had been crying her eyes 
out. She was heart-broken at having to leave all her 
friends, and the little church she had loved so well, and 
her social position in the neighbourhood. It was real 
cruelty to her, almost like murder, though Audrey’s father 
did not realise how utterly he was wrecking his wife’s hap¬ 
piness. Then there was Frank, her brother. He had had 
“a colossal row” with his father, and accused him of being 
a selfish humbug who preached the love of God and forgot 
his duty to his wife and children. He had threatened to 
bash Father Rivington as the cause of all the trouble and 
had actually gone round to the house of that young priest 
with murderous intent. Fortunately Father Rivington had 
been able to take care of himself and had behaved so de¬ 
cently that Frank confessed he wasn’t such a bad chap after 
all, and that his father was solely responsible for his own 
lunacy. TJien there had been another row, worse than the 
first, because Frank had utterly refused to accept a job in 
a city office which had been offered by one of his father’s 
friends. 

“Don’t you intend to do any honest work?” his father 
had asked. “Aren’t you going to play the game of life, 
old lad, and pay back all the money I lavished on your 
education ?” 

“Oh, Lord!” said Julian at this stage of Audrey’s tale, 
“that’s how my Governor talks! I suppose they all do.” 

Well, Frank had told his father that he intended to play 
the game of life in his own way. And now he was playing 
it in the worst way possible. He had taken a labourer’s 
job in a market garden near Guildford—he had only to 
touch flowers to make them grow—-and was living with a 
girl in a tiny cottage on the edge of Ranmore Common. 

Julian whistled. 

“Good Lord. What kind of a girl ?” 

“No class,” said Audrey. “Used to be a servant girl at 
the Iffields. . . . She’ll drag him down to the lowest ditch. 


142 Heirs Apparent 

Poor old Franky! One of the heroes of the Great War— 
and my best pal!” 

She was visibly distressed, though she spoke bravely. 
Presently she asked a question which startled Julian, be¬ 
cause it was unlike her usual way of speech. 

“Julian, do you think we’re on the right line, all of us?” 

“How do you mean?” asked Julian. 

“I mean we’re so jolly sure of ourselves, but after all Pm 
beginning to have some creeping doubts. It’s not really 
good that a fellow like Frank—Marlborough and all that—- 
should link up with a village girl and end his days as a 
farm hand. And Clatworthy and you, and all of us—what 
are we going to do? How are we going to shape out? 
We don’t, seem to have a notion. That ‘literature’ of yours 
—isn’t it rather an excuse for doing nothing—marking 
time ?” 

She put her hand on his and laughed a little and said, 
“Let’s be honest!” 

Julian met her candid brown eyes with slight uneasiness. 
She seemed to be looking for the truth below his mask. 

“We’re bound to mark time a bit,” he said. “I confess 
to—uncertainty. I haven’t any fixed ideas or principles, 
beyond a certain decent code, I suppose.” 

“That’s it,” said Audrey. “Of course I believe in the 
open mind, and all that, but—” 

“Our crowd’s all right,” said Julian. “I mean the 
younger crowd. Only people expect too much from us, 
and things are against us just now. All this unsettled state 
of the world—unemployment in England—the break up of 
the old scheme of things—the clash of old ideas with new 
ideas. . . . I’m not worrying. I’m a fatalist.” 

“We’re all fatalists,” said Audrey. “Perhaps we ought 
to begin to worry—about ourselves. Otherwise—” 

“Otherwise?” asked Julian. 

Audrey shrugged her shoulders. 

“I don’t want to end with my head in a gas oven. I 
shall feel like that at Clapham.” 

“Good Lord!” said Julian. “You’re getting morbid!” 

She put her head against his shoulder, and burst into 


Heirs Apparent 143 

tears. Fortunately the furniture men had their backs 
turned, and Julia and Celia were inside the house. 

“Hush!” said Julian. “Cheer up ! For goodness’ sake—” 

He felt immensely embarrassed and tremendously sorry 
for Audrey, and profoundly glad that Clatworthy did not 
reappear. He took hold of Audrey’s hand to show his 
comradeship. 

At the sound of the foreman’s footsteps crunching on 
the gravel close by, Audrey pulled herself together with a 
plucky effort and blew her nose as a demonstration of self- 
possession. 

“Little ass!” she said. “I’m beastly sorry, Julian! It’s 
this Frank business that has upset my mental poise! And 
going into exile where I’ll never see you, or any one, 
again.” 

“You’ll see me all right,” said Julian. “I’ll come and 
find you.” 

“Promise? On your word of honour? May you die if 
you don’t!” 

“May I be hanged to the highest tree if I don’t.” 

She squeezed his hand, and then jumped up as Clat¬ 
worthy reappeared looking so limp and woebegone, that 
Audrey laughed at him. 

“What’s father been doing to you, Johnny?” 

“Convincing me of sin,” said Clatworthy. “Never again 
will I wink at a maid-servant when my Aunt says morning 
prayers. Never again will I make a little beast of myself 
at the Bullingdon.” 

He took Audrey’s hand and spoke solemnly. 

“That little proposal of mine? You’ll think of it? I’m 
dead serious.” 

Audrey blushed again, but would not take him seriously. 
She also hinted that they were interfering with her domestic 
duties. Reluctantly they took the hint and went, and she 
waved to them and kissed her hand as the Metallurgique 
shot away. 

“A nice kid,” said Julian over the wheel. 

-‘Adorable,” said Clatworthy, “and desperately in love 
with you, old man. I haven’t a look in, curse you!” 


144 Heirs Apparent 

“Rot!” said Julian, trying to suppress the colour that 
crept into his face. 

“I saw it in her eyes. I always know. I'm psychic in 
that way. Well, my little broken heart won’t matter. Poor 
Jack Point—the jolly jester!” 

“Don’t talk abject bunk,” said Julian. 


XVIII 


E VELYN was delighted with the idea of an evening in 
town. She suggested a theatre—Galsworthy’s “Loy¬ 
alties” preceded by Barrie’s “Shall We Join the Ladies?”— 
followed by a dance at some really bright place such as 
Ciro’s or Murray’s. She undertook to provide a lady for 
Clatworthy and telephoned then and there to Ethel Harker 
—the blonde with the tired eyes and the taste for whiskey 
and soda whom Julian had met a few nights before. That 
lady accepted with pleasure. 

Mrs. Iffield, Evelyn’s mother-in-law, was not so delighted 
with the idea. She reminded Evelyn that her husband had 
invited General Tester to dinner and would be extremely 
hurt if Evelyn went up to town. It would look like a 
deliberate insult to the General. It would also be most 
unkind to desert Ted. 

“It’s awkward,” said Evelyn, “but Ted will get over it 
and the General won’t miss me if you give him plenty of 
port this side of apoplexy, and listen patiently to his remi¬ 
niscences of Tel-el-Kebir. Anyhow I’m going.” 

Even Julian and Clatworthy were rather doubtful whether 
she ought to go in view of that General to dinner. They 
did not want to lead her into a scrape which might result 
in domestic unpleasantness. They offered to “call it off,” 
regretfully, but Evelyn would not hear of such a thing. 

“I’m not going to miss this night out for any old Gen¬ 
eral, Archbishop, or Archangel! I’ve been mewed up in 
this old house too long. If I don’t escape I shall choke to 
death.” 

“But, Evelyn—” said Mrs. Iffield, “I beg of you, my 
dear—” 

“No use, dearest mother! London for me to-night with 
two nice boys and no old fogeys. My purple frock—I 
think!” 


145 


146 Heirs Apparent 

Mrs. Iffield, mother of the major, tightened her lips. 
She was a tall, white-haired lady, with aquiline features, 
totally unlike the broad ruddy face of her soldier son. 

“I think we had better talk the matter over alone, my 
dear,” she said to Evelyn, quietly and firmly. “If these 
gentlemen will excuse us.” 

Evelyn challenged her mother-in-law with mutinous eyes. 

“Waste of breath, mother dear. Wild horses won’t hold 
me back.” 

“Perhaps we had better postpone it till another evening,” 
said Julian uneasily, with a glance at the elder Mrs. Iffield 
who gave him a beseeching look. 

Evelyn laughed quietly. 

“The white feather, little boy? In that case I’ll go with 
your friend, or failing that, alone. London lures me. 
‘Curfew shall not ring to-night!’ ” 

“Oh, well, if you put it like that!” said Julian, feeling 
crushed. “I’m keen enough, as you know.” 

“And I’m for liberty,” said Clatworthy. “ A has la 

Bastille!” 

Evelyn announced that she would be inside her purple 
frock before they could say “knife.” As a matter of fact 
she was three quarters of an hour, during which time 
Julian and Clatworthy smoked several cigarettes and ex¬ 
changed remarks. 

Clatworthy’s were as usual the more imaginative. He 
likened Evelyn to the dark lady of the Sonnets. He also 
implored Julian to give him his password for putting a 
spell upon the eyes of beauty. Later he hoped that the 
lady had not been murdered by her wicked mother-in-law. 
In a serious moment he warned Julian that he was asking 
for trouble, if Major Iffield had anything like a temper 
and a strong arm. The little lady was doing something in 
the nature of a bunk from a domestic dinner table deco¬ 
rated by a General. It was not discreet, though he had 
every sympathy with those who felt the impulse of a binge. 

Julian agreed as to the indiscretion. But as he asked, 
“What the dickens can I do, old man, if she insists on 
going? I can’t play the part of Wet Blanket. Besides it’s 


Heirs Apparent 147 

old man Iffield’s fault. He shouldn’t have married a girl 
twenty years younger than himself. Obviously she wants 
a little fun now and then with people of her own age.” 

“True,” said Clatworthy. “True. A pitiful little 
tragedy. The man is probably a domestic tyrant and 
brutal fellow. Anyhow he’s old and ought to die. But if 
I may give you a word of advice, Julian, I wouldn’t let 
little Eve get her fun at your expense. It’s horribly dan¬ 
gerous—for you, little ’un. Stand from under, old boy! 
Stand from under!” 

“It’s a little awkward,” said Julian, “but not dangerous. 
Evelyn is perfectly straight, and the Major is a tolerant 
old bird. I will say that.” 

Clatworthy had recourse to Shakespearean blank verse 
which he recited gravely, with Irvingesque dignity. 

. . Beware, my lord, of jealousy; 

It is the green-eyed monster, which doth mock 
The meat it feeds on . . 

“Shut up, for God’s sake!” said Julian, for at that mo¬ 
ment the door opened and Evelyn came in, looking won¬ 
derful in the purple frock. She wore a rope of amber 
beads, and a red rose in her hair. Perhaps she had caught 
the rhythm of Clatworthy’s quotation, for she gave a low 
curtsey and spoke as near to Elizabethan English as she 
could improvise. 

“Does this simple gown find favour with my lords on a 
merry night in June?” 

“Excellently well, i’ faith, fair lady,” said Clatworthy, 
and indeed she was an elegant and graceful thing, there in 
that old room with its panelled walls painted white under 
oak beams which had glimmered in the rush lights of Eliza¬ 
bethan England. So Julian thought. 

There had been, she said, a little scene upstairs with “the 
mother-in-law,” but adventurous youth had won a victory 
over suspicious old age. She had brought down a fur cloak 
and Julian held it for her so that the purple frock was 
covered. The question of evening clothes for himself and 


148 Heirs Apparent 

Clatworthy was raised by Julian. It would waste no end 
of time to go to their respective houses to dress. On the 
other hand, they could not go to any smart place like Mur¬ 
ray’s or Ciro’s in lounge suits. Evelyn decided the ques¬ 
tion. Julian could pick up his clothes at Gorse Hill en 
passant and dress at Clatworthy’s house in town while she 
collected Ethel Harker. She liked her escort to be prop¬ 
erly dressed and they owed it to the purple frock. 

“What a genius for staff work!” exclaimed Clatworthy. 
“You ought to be Commander-in-Chief in our next little 
war!” 

It was six o’clock when she sat by Julian in the Metal- 
/urgique with Clatworthy in the seat behind but leaning 
forward so that he could talk to them, with Evelyn at the 
wheel. 

“See me drive to London,” she said. “I wasn’t in the 
war for nothing!” 

She drove with a cool nerve and took the narrow curves 
of the winding road at a pace which made Julian shiver 
once or twice, and according to Clatworthy raised the hair 
on the head of that simple soul. But her judgment was 
good and she went through the traffic of Epsom and Wim¬ 
bledon with just the right margin, though it might be an 
inch. 

That was after Julian had dashed into his house and 
stuffed his dress things into his kit bag, with a hasty 
explanation to his mother, which did not seem to satisfy 
her. She was obviously “peeved” as Julian saw at a 
glance. 

“You and Janet are a nice pair, I must say. Precious 
little regard for your mother! What’s the good of bring¬ 
ing up children who dash away from one at every oppor¬ 
tunity ?” 

“What’s your trouble with Janet?” asked Julian, search¬ 
ing for his dress tie. 

“She’s just sent a wire from town to say ‘Back late.’ I 
had no idea the little minx had gone up to London. She 
sneaked off while I was taking tea at the Grange.” 

Julian raised his eyebrows. 


Heirs Apparent 149 

“Don’t you go to the Grange a bit often these days, 
mater? What’s the attraction with that old rotter Corn- 
ford ?” 

Mrs. Perryam blushed quite vividly and faced her son 
with a laugh that was half angry, half amused. 

“He’s more interesting than Grandfather and a lonely 
household, anyhow. And if you were a few years younger 
I’d box your ears for impudence, Mr. Cheek!” 

“Not you!” said Julian. “You know you spoilt me from 
the time I was a small brat.” 

“Yes, and this is the reward I get! Two selfish young 
people who won’t stay home a single evening and leave their 
mother to twiddle her thumbs in her own drawing-room!” 

“There’s always the governor,” said Julian. “Isn’t he 
company enough?” 

Mrs. Perryam replied with a laughing groan. 

“Poor Daddy! He’s getting fretful in his old age. All 
nerves! And full of worry about your career, and Janet’s 
love of pleasure, and my extravagance, if you please! One 
gets rather tired of it sometimes.” 

Her lips trembled a little, and for the first time Julian 
suspected that his mother had a grudge against life and 
was not altogether satisfied with its rewards. She had an 
envious wistful look in her eyes as he folded up his tail¬ 
coat, fixed the buttons to his white waistcoat and said, “I 
must rush!” 

“For two pins I’d come with you,” said Mrs. Perryam. 
“Why should I be left out of everything? I’m not so old 
and ugly as all that!” 

“Young and beautiful!” answered Julian. He hesitated 
and was almost tempted to say, “Come along, mother!” but 
after all it would rather interfere with Evelyn’s scheme of 
things. 

“You and I will have a gay time one night on our own, 
mother!” 

With that promise which she received with a satirical 
smile, he ran downstairs and down the drive and jumped 
into the Metallurgique outside the gate where Evelyn sat 
at the wheel. 


150 Heirs Apparent 

“You men take longer to dress than women,” said that 
pretty lady, with a touch of impatience. She made up for 
lost time on the road to Epsom and London and ignored 
the cautionary signals of the traffic control men. 


XIX 


T HEY dined at a French restaurant in Soho, where 
Clatworthy was received with great cordiality and 
deference by the head waiter and the cloak-room attendant. 
Clatworthy paid for the meal with a five-pound note which 
he had borrowed from his father’s butler while Julian was 
dressing in his house in Eaton Place—a gloomy mansion 
pervaded by a mildewed atmosphere which exuded from 
its mahogany furniture, its plush-covered chairs, its steel 
engravings of the Royal Family by Winterhalter, and its 
portraits in oil of smug-faced old gentlemen in white cravats 
and a wealth of whisker, ridiculously like the youngest 
Clatworthy who now jibed at them. 

“Is it any wonder I’m a little Bolshevik?’’ he asked, 
“when I’m confronted by these ape-like old hypocrites who 
helped to build up the British Empire, by grinding the noses 
of their factory hands—we’re Cotton, old boy!—and sub¬ 
scribing heavily to the funds of the Church Missionary 
Society! This house is haunted by the humbug of Early 
Victorian morality and by the flabby ghosts of all those 
family butlers of whom Barnett is the last representative 
on earth.” 

In the French restaurant Evelyn threw off dull care with 
her fur cloak and gave little ripples of laughter every time 
she thought of her escape from a dull dinner with General 
Tester and her mother-in-law and “poor old Ted.” She 
praised Clatworthy for his nice knowledge of cocktails and 
chose the most exotic dishes from the menu, including 
frogs’ legs and “tripe a la mode de Caen.” She raised her 
glass of Moulin-a-vent to Julian and drank to liberty and 
the rights of youth. She also held a bright conversation 
in marvellous French with one of the waiters, and delighted 
him by her knowledge of his language and his native town 
which happened to be Avignon. Needless to say she sang 

1S1 


152 Heirs Apparent 

the old song associated for ever with that place of beauty, 
thus further endearing herself to the waiter. 

“Sur le pont 
D’Avignon 
On y danse . . .” 

People at other tables turned round to stare and smile at 
this pretty girl in the purple frock, so full of vivacity and 
mirth, so dark-haired and bright-eyed. 

Ethel Harker, opposite Clatworthy, who had taken an 
immediate dislike to her and devoted his attention entirely 
to Evelyn, was hipped by the public homage to her friend’s 
gaiety, and fretfully annoyed by Evelyn’s indifference to 
“good manners.” 

“I wish you wouldn’t keep laughing so much,” she said 
once. “People will think you’ve been drinking 1” 

“I am drinking!” said Evelyn. “The wine of Youth!” 

She raised her glass again and proposed another toast. 

“Here’s confusion to all mothers-in-law!” 

Julian, in his English way, was somewhat embarrassed 
by Evelyn’s exuberance of spirits in a public place. He 
blushed a little when he became aware of the interest of 
other parties in their table. But he was amused and rather 
thrilled. This was Life! Better than chasing the elusive 
idea in a garden with clipped hedges and a cuckoo calling. 
Evelyn was alarmingly attractive, and although she and 
Clatworthy did most of the prattle—Clatworthy played up 
to her in grand style and seemed to amuse her vastly—she 
made Julian feel that he was the one she liked best, and 
that while Clatworthy was her jester, he was her knight. 
Twice she touched his foot with hers under the table, as 
a sign of secret understanding. Once she put her hand 
through his arm between the courses. It was impossible 
to believe that she was a married woman with a big house 
of her own, and servants, and a large-sized husband, and 
a mother-in-law. She looked so young—she was so young 
—a slip of a girl—and so childlike, almost. 

They went on to the theatre, and Evelyn was so amused 
with Barrie’s piece that she disturbed the gravity of the 


Heirs Apparent 153 

stalls by her laughter, and so excited by Galsworthy’s 
“Loyalties” that she could hardly bear the moment when 
the man shot himself. 

Between the acts she discussed the play with Julian rather 
seriously. 

“I’ve known men like that. The war seemed to snap 
something in their moral code. Of course it snapped a 
good many things in the dear old conventions. That’s what 
makes it so difficult to get back again—to the humdrum 
ways. Sometimes when I think of the old adventure of it 
all I want to break out, scream the house down, assault 
my mother-in-law, throw stones at the greenhouse—any old 
thing, to break the monotony with a big bang. I’d welcome 
an air raid with a song and dance.” 

“Rather unhealthy—that point of view, isn’t it?” asked 
Julian. “Though, of course, I understand it.” 

“No, you don’t, little one!” said Evelyn. “No one can 
understand who wasn’t through the Big Show. Lucky for 
those who do not know. Unhealthy? Yes, I suppose so. 
That’s what’s the matter with the world. The headache 
after strong drink. Boredom after melodrama. If one 
could only kill boredom!” 

She killed it all right later in the evening. Clatworthy 
“wangled” his way into the Jazz Club which he declared 
was the only bright place in London after theatre time. It 
was certainly bright, and might indeed have been called 
lurid by any one who, like Julian, had a sensitive eye. The 
dancing rooms, in a basement below the Charing Cross 
Road, were decorated in the most advanced style of art, 
one degree beyond the Futurists, with a wild discord of 
clashing colour-tones in erratic curves and tangential lines. 
The ceilings were not flat but made up of sharp angles 
painted in flaming yellows and shrieking greens. It was 
all amazingly eccentric, deliberately designed to shock the 
senses, but Julian thought it ridiculous. The company was 
more interesting. There was a considerable gathering of 
men older than Clatworthy and Julian—obvious survivors 
of the Unmentionable Thing—and quite a number of bald- 
headed. and white-headed old gentlemen who made most 


154 Heirs Apparent 

noise, seemed most vivacious, and were in the company of 
some of the youngest and prettiest girls. All the girls 
seemed to know each other. They called each other 
“Mabel” and “Lilian,” “darling” and “old dear,” waved 
their cigarettes to each other from distant tables, and eyed 
each other’s frocks with friendly or satirical eyes. They 
were pretty girls, mostly; some of them with fresh childish 
faces, pouting lips and big babyish eyes; some of them 
tired-looking, with little lines about their eyes and lips when 
they smiled, but youngish, and strenuously gay. They all 
seemed to be drinking champagne, and smoking those gold- 
tipped cigarettes which they waved to each other. The 
younger men treated them with affected gallantry, and the 
old men behaved with an amorous senility which Clat- 
worthy thought highly amusing, and Julian rather disgust¬ 
ing. 

“This,” said Clatworthy, “is what the picture papers call 
a haunt of flaming vice. In reality it’s merely make- 
believe. Those old bald-heads have escaped from respect¬ 
able suburban homes for what they call a night in Bohemia. 
They’ll catch the last train home all right. Those pretty 
girls are not as naughty as they look. Some of them are 
keeping shabby-genteel mothers in the Brixton Road out of 
quite respectable earnings from the Gaiety chorus and the 
movie manufactures. Only a few depart from the strict 
laws of virtue, and that, poor children, from necessity 
rather than choice. Anyhow, here’s dear old human na¬ 
ture. Let’s study it with unabashed eyes. . . . Hullo, 
Gertie!” 

He waved a friendly hand to a distant young lady with 
black eyes shining from a dead white face with carmine 
lips who grimaced back at him and giggled. 

“For a simple undergraduate not yet down from Ox¬ 
ford,” said Evelyn, “Mr. Clatworthy seems to have con¬ 
siderable knowledge of life!” 

Clatworthy had a perfect explanation. 

“My terrifying Aunt has warned me so constantly against 
the temptations of youth that in self-defence I’ve had to 
test my moral strength. I find that I can pass through 


Heirs Apparent 155 

forests full of lovely witches without turning a hair. My 
face is like defensive armour. Now Julian, with his 
knight-errant look, will have to take care of himself. These 
little houris would draw a bee line for him if he lifted an 
eyebrow at them.” 

“Not while I stand by him,” said Evelyn. 

“Personally,” said Ethel Harker, “I find this sort of 
place extremely boring. For goodness’ sake let’s get some¬ 
thing to eat and drink.” 

Julian ordered two bottles of champagne, as well as 
supper at the little table they had chosen as far away as 
possible from the jazz band and its wailing saxophone 
played by a sad looking man with black hair who was, 
according to Clatworthy, a Russian prince. 

Every now and then some of the men—especially the 
“old bald-heads” as Clatworthy called them—left their 
tables with the girls and danced on the empty floor space. 

“Shall we?” asked Julian, and Evelyn smiled and nodded, 
and they too took the floor, and Evelyn danced as she had 
that evening in her own house, and Julian and she made 
such a good looking couple that many people in the room 
turned to watch them. 

“Who’s that fair boy?” asked a girl near Clatworthy’s 
table. “He’s new here.” 

“One of the baby boy’s from Oxford, I should say,” was 
the answer from another girl who was using a lip stick while 
she gazed into a little mirror at the back of her powder puff. 

“He’s got a wicked little devil with him,” said the first 
girl. “She’ll teach him all right.” 

“Do you know her?” 

“Yes, it’s Evelyn Hepplewhite. She used to come here 
with a kid officer in the jolly old days. He got killed, like 
the others, and she married a general or something.” 

“Well, I’m sorry for the general! He’ll have his picture 
in the papers one of these days.” 

Clatworthy, discussing the weather with Ethel Harker, 
heard this conversation with his left ear. It amused him 
considerably and he decided to repeat it to Julian later in 
the evening. 


156 Heirs Apparent 

Julian and Evelyn exchanged a few words as they danced. 

“Queer place this !” said Julian. “Rather sinister, I 
should say. Do you mind the company ?” 

“It’s the usual crowd in these places. Wicked old men. 
Young men old before their time. Girls like I might have 
been if I hadn’t married Ted. Do they shock you, baby 
boy?” 

“Not in the least,” said Julian, not altogether truthfully, 
for he was a little shocked by two girls who were sitting on 
the knees of their elderly admirers. “But I wish you 
wouldn’t compare yourself with girls like these. They may 
be all that’s good, but they’re not—ladies.” 

Evelyn Iffield smiled into his eyes. 

“It does make a difference, doesn’t it?” 

When he took her back to her seat a man with one sleeve 
empty and a bronzed, soldierly-looking face came up with 
an air of surprise and pleasure. 

“By Jove! Eve! You here again, after goodness knows 
how long!” 

“Thousands of years,” said Evelyn, “when Dick and I 
were babies, and you came back with him on leave. How 
goes it, old dear?” 

“All the better for seeing you. Can you spare me a seat 
at your table ?” 

“Ra-ther!” 

Evelyn introduced her friend as Victor Bellamy—“other¬ 
wise known as Binks.” 

He sat next to her, after shaking hands with Julian 
and Clatworthy with his left hand, and bowing to Ethel 
Harker. 

“Poor old Dick!” he said to Evelyn. “Hard luck, eh?” 

Julian remembered with a queer kind of pang that “Dick” 
was Evelyn’s first husband—that boy in the Cavalry. Amaz¬ 
ing to think she had been married twice. Incredible—and 
rather terrible. He was out of it now. These two became 
absorbed in old recollections, talked of people and places 
unknown to him, laughed at jests which passed beyond him. 
He listened moodily, rather angrily, with a hot, jealous feel¬ 
ing because Evelyn ignored him for this middle-aged fellow 


Heirs Apparent 157 

with little grey hairs each side of his high, bronzed forehead, 
who made him feel like a schoolboy. It was too bad of 
Evelyn to forget him utterly like this and go on talking and 
laughing^as if he didn’t exist. It was the war again—Bou¬ 
logne, Staples, “Number 24 General,” air raids, cabarets, 
canteens, officers who had been killed, “our crowd,” London 
with the lid off, joy rides. He hated all that talk of a time 
when he was actually a schoolboy, Captain of the First 
Eleven at Winchester, when other fellows had been captains 
of aircraft, infantry, tanks. Evelyn talked of those days as 
if she were old enough to be his mother, whereas she was 
five years older in age and much younger in looks—a per¬ 
fect kid! He wished Clatworthy had not brought them to 
this place. It was a decadent kind of show, and not too re¬ 
spectable. Those two girls were behaving abominably with 
those old men, and at another table a girl was obviously 
“tight” by the way she lolled about, and then knocked a 
glass of wine over with her elbow and screamed with laugh¬ 
ter. He didn’t mind for himself—it was a part of life he 
wanted to see—but it was no place for Evelyn Iffield. He 
wished she hadn’t been there before with that “Dick” of 
hers. It seemed to reveal a phase of her life which he 
wanted to forget. She had her back to him now and leaned 
forward to that fellow Bellamy with her elbow on the table 
and her little pointed chin in the palms of her hands. 

“I’m buried alive,” he heard her say. “Sometimes that 
old ghost house of mine—” 

Two professional dancers had taken the floor, and Julian 
watched them gloomily, although they danced marvellously. 
He was “fed up” with the whole evening, utterly spoilt by 
the intrusion of Bellamy. Clatworthy seemed to have 
thawed to Ethel Harker and was telling her about the Bul- 
lingdon while she pretended to look interested and hid her 
yawns. 

The professional dancers were doing acrobatic tricks— 
decidedly risky in their character, not to say on the verge of 
indecency. Julian was glad Evelyn did not pay the slightest 
attention to them, although he wished to goodness she would 
give him a look in. He would have a quarrel with her about 


158 Heirs Apparent 

that. It made him feel humiliated, and hurt, and bad tem¬ 
pered. After all, it was his show, and not Bellamy’s. 

Suddenly Julian sat up straight in his chair and stared 
across the room. He could hardly believe his eyes, but there, 
certainly, was his sister Janet with Cyril Buckland and an¬ 
other couple. They were seated at one of the tables near 
the band, and Janet, his little baby sister, was drinking some 
poisonous stuff out of a green liqueur glass and smoking a 
gold-tipped cigarette, like those other girls round the room. 
Cyril Buckland held one of her hands, and as Julian looked 
towards them, bent down and kissed her neck. 

Julian rose from his chair and went over to them. He 
was white with anger, and touched, unconsciously, with fear. 
His little sister from a convent school! It was perfectly 
outrageous for her to be in a place like this, with Cyril or 
any one else. His father and mother would faint with alarm 
if they had any idea of it. 

“Good heavens, Janet,” he said, “what on earth are you 
doing here?” 

She seemed surprised to see him, but quite unabashed. 

“Hullo, Julian! You here too? Amusing, isn’t it? 
[Who’s with you?” 

Julian turned to Cyril Buckland with an angry glare. 

“You ought to be damned well ashamed of yourself,” he 
said in a loud voice, “bringing my sister to a place like 
this!” 

Cyril Buckland was frankly astonished at this point of 
view. 

“What’s the matter with the place, old lad? If you don’t 
like it, I shouldn’t stay, if I were you. Why not do a movie 
show ?” 

He spoke with a slight thickness of utterance, as though 
his tongue had become a trifle too large for the roof of his 
mouth. But he was blandly polite and patronising, as though 
talking to a small boy. 

“Besides,” said Janet, “if you come here, why shouldn’t 
I?” 

“I’m a man,” said Julian. “You’re a kid,” and that state- 


Heirs Apparent 159 

ment was received with laughter not only by Janet and Cyril 
as a good jest, but by the other couple—a monocled young 
man and a girl with honey-coloured hair and touched-up eyes 
—who were at their table. Their laughter enraged Julian be¬ 
cause it emphasised that youth of his—did he look so ab¬ 
surdly boyish ?—which had caused him to be put on one side 
by Evelyn when she met an older friend. He also felt furi¬ 
ous with Janet for the calm way in which she flouted him 
publicly. 

“We can’t wrangle here,” he said quietly, and with a 
great effort of self-control which made him feel pale. 
“There’ll be a row about it when we get home.” 

Janet smiled, with perfect indifference to his threat. 

“All right, old boy. Save it up.” 

Julian put his hands in his pockets, and returned to his 
own table, where Evelyn was still in animated conversation 
with the Bellamy person. 

“Isn’t this getting a bit on the boresome side?” he asked 
Clatworthy and the company generally. 

“Not a bit of it!” said Clatworthy. “I’m just beginning 
to warm up. What about this dance, Miss Harker?” 

Evelyn turned to Julian with an ingratiating little smile. 

“Do you mind if I dance this with Binks—for old times’ 
sake ?” 

“Go ahead!” said Julian politely, but with an inward fire 
of jealousy and resentment against the man who had put 
him completely in the shade. 

He watched them dancing, and raged because Evelyn 
looked up into the face of that one-armed man as she had 
looked up to his, with even more vivacity and more obvious 
interest, he thought. He also observed Janet as she came 
round the room in Cyril Buckland’s arms, looking like a 
Columbine with a fresh, childlike innocence and laughing 
lips. Cyril was certainly a little drunk, he thought. His 
knees were sagging, and there was a watery look in his 
rather small dark eyes. Other girls passed with their men, 
the little actresses and movie girls with their deliberate 
smiles—false as Hell! thought Julian—and their roving eyes. 


160 Heirs Apparent 

Wafts of rankish scent came from them as they danced by. 
He heard little fragments of their baby talk to hard-mouthed 
young men and old dotards. 

“How naughty of you! . . . Oh, you ridiculous old dar¬ 
ling! . . . How perfectly thrilling! . . . And didn’t she 
smack you when you talked like that?” 

“This is gay life in London!” thought Julian. “This is 
what I’ve wanted to see so long. For this I left Oxford. 
It all seems very dull, and rather poisonous.” 

A wave of Puritanical sentiment swept over him because 
of Janet and Evelyn, and his astounding loneliness. He de¬ 
cided that it would be a good thing if the police closed down 
such places with their foetid atmosphere. He would tell his 
mother about Janet. That child wanted the firm hand of 
parental restraint or inevitably she would go dancing to the 
devil. All his convictions on the subject of liberty, equal 
rights for women, and absence from parental control were 
submerged by his disgust and boredom. He was no prig, he 
thought, but there was a limit, and anyhow this room was 
filled with a horrible crowd. 

Perhaps Evelyn saw the depth of his gloom when she came 
back with Bellamy, and was a little conscience-stricken at 
her neglect. 

“Look at this tired young man!” she exclaimed. “A por¬ 
trait of ‘Bored Stiff!’ by Sir William Orpen. . . . Well, per¬ 
haps you’re right, Julian. Let’s get back to the Metallurgique 
and go home. Wow—and won’t it be chilly?” 

Clatworthy was staying the night in town and had ar¬ 
ranged to see Ethel Harker back to her flat in Bury Street, 
St. James’s. 

“Well, Eve,” said Bellamy, “it’s been a treat to see you. 
Don’t forget that little lunch with me when next you come 
to town. Duke Street, over the tailor’s shop.” 

“Right-o, Binks dear!” 

She gave him her left hand in a comradely way. 

Julian drove back, and his silence did not disconcert the 
lady by his side for quite a time. She hummed little songs 
to herself and once burst into a gay laugh and said, “Binks 
—and a whole chapter of ancient history!” 


Heirs Apparent 161 

It was at the London side of Epsom that she condescended 
to notice Julian’s gloom and taciturnity. 

“Tired, hipped, or hungry ?” 

“Hipped,” said Julian. “I’m not fond of being treated 
like a puppy-dog.” 

“Now that’s unkind. I’ve been perfectly sweet to you. 
You’re not going to spoil it by being peevish? Didn’t the 
child enjoy himself?” 

“It was a hateful place,” said Julian. “Perfectly poi¬ 
sonous ! And I’m not keen on entertaining uninvited 
guests.” 

As a matter of fact, he had spent a good deal of money on 
the supper and resented the slight addition of Bellamy’s 
brandy and soda. 

“Jealous!” said Evelyn. “Did you ever expect it of such 
a nice-minded boy ?” 

“I’m sick of being called a boy!” said Julian. “And fed 
up with being treated like one.” 

Evelyn was highly amused, and protested that she regarded 
him not only as a Man with a capital M but as a most wise, 
virtuous, and beautiful specimen of that species. Further¬ 
more, she preferred him to all other gentlemen of Surrey 
because of his delicacy of profile and sweetness of disposi¬ 
tion. Meanwhile, would he object if she snuggled up to his 
shoulder and slept awhile ? 

Whether he objected or not, that was precisely what she 
did, somewhat to Julian’s discomfort at the steering wheel, 
but very much to the advantage of his temper. The touch 
of her head against his shoulder had something exquisite in 
its sensation. It was the first time in his life that he had 
driven down a moonlit road at night with a beautiful girl 
asleep by his side. It was an almost incredible thing, but a 
memory that he would cherish as long as he lived. He must 
write some verses about it. He might even introduce it into 
his three-act play. . . . 

She awakened with a little start on the other side of 
Leatherhead and shivered a little. 

“Conscience begins to bite,” she said. “There’ll be a scene 
with dear old Ted. But well worth it. A priceless evening! 


162 Heirs Apparent 

. . . Look how the moonlight through the trees makes lace- 
work on the roadway. Isn’t it enchanting, Julian?” 

“Shall I drive right up to the house,” asked Julian pres¬ 
ently, “or stop outside the gate?” 

“The front door for me,” she answered. “No sneaking in 
by back ways. In for a penny, in for a pound.” 

It was three in the morning, as they knew by the clock of 
Dorking church. Twenty minutes past three when Julian 
swung up the drive and stopped outside Evelyn’s house. 

A light was burning in one of the rooms on the ground 
floor. 

“Poor old Ted!” whispered Evelyn. “As cross as a bear 
with a sore ear, and bursting with moral platitudes.” 

Julian helped her out of the car. 

She put her face very close to his and he saw in the 
moonlight that she was smiling in a queer, witch-like way. 

“Quick!” she said, and put her arm about his neck and 
pulled his head down and kissed him on the lips. 

“Boy!” she whispered, and with a laugh sprang away 
from him and pulled at a bell so that it clanged in the hall 
of her old house. 

Julian drove away in the car. He was trembling in every 
limb with a strange, painful, but exquisite excitement, while 
independently of that sensation of immense physical and 
spiritual joy, he was conscious, quite clearly and intellec¬ 
tually, of Fear. 


XX 


J ULIAN decided to abandon the three-act play on Ox¬ 
ford life. It did not seem to work out very well. He 
rather liked some of the dialogue he had written for the 
first act, but there was no plot in it and he could not get one 
into it. It was probably a trick he had not yet learnt. It 
would be better to write a novel, something in the style of 
Galsworthy, perhaps, or a more refined and subtle Arnold 
Bennett. Unfortunately he could not concentrate on the 
idea. It is impossible to concentrate on any impersonal idea 
when one’s mind is obsessed with a private melodrama, and 
that was the case with Julian, though for some time he re¬ 
fused to admit it to himself and put up a tremendous bluff 
with his own conscience that nothing had happened to dis¬ 
turb his normal state of mind or to break down that admira¬ 
ble self-control which had given him such a sense of se¬ 
curity. 

Certain facts, however, forced themselves upon his self- 
consciousness. One was this inability to work. For hours he 
sat in his room before a block of manuscript, drawing geo¬ 
metrical patterns with his pencil but not producing a master¬ 
piece, nor so much as a coherent sentence. Generally if he 
wrote a word at all it was one which abashed him when he 
awakened from a kind of trance and saw the name of Evelyn 
written over and over again in his fine, neat, Balliol hand. 
He was careful to destroy those bits of paper, as though they 
revealed a guilty secret which he wished to hide from him¬ 
self as well as from others. Another annoying trick of men¬ 
tality which plagued him was an absent-mindedness so in¬ 
tense that he did absurd little things which excited the ridi¬ 
cule of his family and made them wonder what had come 
over him. One morning, for instance, his mother discovered 
him in his bedroom lying in a chair in his dinner clothes, 
and he had the humiliation of confessing that he had sat up 

163 


164 Heirs Apparent 

half the night “thinking out things” until he had fallen 
asleep, and had failed to hear the breakfast bell. 

“Thinking out what things?” asked his mother, suspi¬ 
ciously. 

“Oh, ideas of sorts,” Julian had answered vaguely, con¬ 
scious that his mother’s watchful eyes were not quite satis¬ 
fied with this explanation. 

“Ideas for your jolly old book?” she asked again. 

“Ideas generally,” he answered, and then became impa¬ 
tient and ironical. “Surely you don’t want to cross-examine 
me on the exact nature of my valuable thoughts?” 

Perhaps that was what she wanted to do, though she re¬ 
frained then. But more than once when he sat silent at 
table, crumbling his bread and forgetting to serve himself 
with food until old Mary jogged his elbow, his mother looked 
across at him with a mischievous smile and said, “A penny 
for your thoughts, Julian!” 

“Not worth it,” he answered, but for the life of him could 
not help colouring up as though she had caught him out 
somehow. 

Even his grandfather, who was sometimes very startling 
in perception of things happening around him, seemed to 
be suspicious of Julian’s silences and self-absorption. 

“You’re worrying about something,” said the old man one 
morning, as he came upon Julian sitting in a deck chair with 
his hands in his pockets staring at a water wagtail on the 
edge of a bird’s bath in the little Dutch garden. 

“What makes you think that?” asked Julian, coldly. 

“I know,” said his grandfather. “I’ve been watching 
you.” 

“Yes. I wish to goodness you wouldn’t!” 

“You’ve got something on your conscience, laddy.” 

“Rot!” said Julian, angrily. 

The old man sat on a camp stool in front of him and 
touched him gently on the knee. 

“If it’s anything you’re afraid to tell your father and 
mother, just say a word to your old grandfather. It’s easier 
for a young man sometimes. He’s shy of his father and 
mother. I was at your age. But a grandfather is so old 


Heirs Apparent 165 

that he doesn't seem to matter. Perhaps he understands 
youth better because he’s getting back to his second child¬ 
hood. Queer idea that, Julian!” 

The old gentleman seemed pleased with the idea. He 
chuckled with mirth at it, but his keen, grey, old eyes 
searched his grandson’s face. 

“If you’ve been getting into debt, I dare say I could help 
you out a little. I’ve got a bit of my own that I’ve been 
saving up for you. I don’t want you to be dragged down 
by some Jew fellow that’s got you in his stranglehold be¬ 
cause of some wild folly and extravagance of youth.” 

Julian was touched by this offer of help from an old man 
who had always been so stern and narrow in morality, and 
whose outlook on life was still limited by the ethical stand¬ 
ards of a Baptist Chapel. 

“It’s very kind of you, Granddad,” he answered, “but 
there’s nothing the matter. I’m not in the clutches of Jew 
or Gentile.” 

“Perhaps it’s a woman?” said the old man. “That’s 
worse. I was grievously tempted myself before I married 
your grandmother. There was a young creature in a hat 
shop at Tooting. I escaped only by the grace of God, and 
if that’s your trouble, Julian, there’s nothing can help you 
but earnest prayer to be delivered from temptation.” 

Julian sprang up and kicked over the deck chair. 

“Look here, Grandfather, I’m fed up with this prying and 
peeping into my private affairs. For goodness’ sake leave me 
alone. I’m perfectly able to take care of myself, and in no 
need of rescue, spiritually, morally, or physically. Thanks 
very much, all the same!” 

“You’re impatient with me,” said his grandfather, mildly. 
“Youth is always impatient with old age. I was very impa¬ 
tient with your great-grandfather who wouldn’t let me go to 
the playhouse to see young Mr. Irving. But old people know 
best very often. You’ll find that out one day, when I’m 
dead. Well, all this is between you and me, Julian. Don’t 
go telling your mother. She only laughs at me and thinks 
I’m an old fool.” 

Julian laughed at his grandfather too, but at the back of 


166 Heirs Apparent 

his mind was the uneasy admission that by some intuitive 
knowledge, some brain wave, or second sight, the plaguy 
old man had found out his secret. 

It was a woman that was the cause of his trouble, and by 
some spell of beauty and laughter and comradeship had 
taken captive his senses and thoughts. Somehow the 
whole world seemed different after that night at the dancing 
club and that moment in the moonlit garden outside her 
house. 

Since then he had been seeing Evelyn Iffield a good deal, 
and her friendship had made a difference to him—and in 
him. He was conscious of a greater intensity of self, and of 
a more vital meaning in things about him. The colours of 
flowers were more vivid, their scent more penetrating. 
Fleecy clouds sailing before the wind were invested with a 
new grace. Darkness was more mysterious, twilight more 
sad, dawn more wonderful, and in itself a miracle because 
he watched it for the first time from his bedroom window 
instead of sleeping on hour after hour after Mary had 
brought his early cup of tea and pulled his blinds. At 
moments he felt enormously happy, and for hours at a 
stretch enormously wretched. He cursed himself as a fool 
and a cad, and then laughed at himself as a prig and a hypo¬ 
crite, and thought out a thousand reasons why his friendship 
with Evelyn Iffleld should not be admirable and blameless, 
while admitting within his own heart that it was a morbid 
affection which was neither good nor healthy nor within his 
code and scheme of things. He was afraid to go near her, 
and yet incapable of staying away. He hated himself for 
yielding to the spell she put upon him, yet he was ashamed of 
his cowardice in fearing the consequences. There were 
times even when she made him feel a kind of anger because 
of her utter carelessness of his pride, her ridicule of his 
scruples, the doubts and jealousy she made him suffer. But 
those moods lasted only for brief moments and she could 
clear away his sulkiness by a teasing word and make him 
feel that Youth had no duties, but only rights. On balance, 
as he reckoned up his own moods with a curious self-analy¬ 
sis, he was more miserable than glad, more restless than sat- 


Heirs Apparent 167 

isfied with this friendship which Evelyn Iffield gave him so 
light-heartedly. 

It was the need of secrecy which gave him a sense of 
guilt. Evelyn impressed that need upon him and was won¬ 
derfully artful in arranging secret meeting places and plausi¬ 
ble excuses. 

“Of course, there’s no reason on earth,” she said, “why 
you and I should not be friends and see each other when 
and where we like. But my mother-in-law has the mind of a 
Divorce Court Judge—she reads The Week too much!—and 
suspects evil in the most innocent comradeship. Therefore 
we must be moderate in our friendship and not meet more 
than twice a week publicly, nor more than once a day pri¬ 
vately. That is the tyranny which suspicious Old Age in¬ 
flicts upon the liberty of young souls! But you know what 
happened about that dinner party from which I was un¬ 
avoidably absent!” 

There had been, she told him, a very unpleasant scene 
with her husband and her mother-in-law. It was all the 
elder Mrs. Iffield’s fault. She had made good-natured old 
Ted assert himself in a way which was quite contrary to his 
nature and easy-going simplicity of mind. She had goaded 
him into a belief that this little escapade was a real dis¬ 
loyalty to his affection and reputation. The mother and son 
had waited up for Evelyn, and poor old Ted, as sleepy as an 
owl, and cold after the fire had died down, had been really 
peevish. He had even permitted himself bad language and 
had accused her of being “damned mean” in cutting off like 
that and leaving him to entertain the General, who wondered 
why the devil his hostess had deserted her table. He’d had 
to tell lies, which he hated, and invent some preposterous 
excuse about a visit to a sick friend. It had put him com¬ 
pletely in the cart. Did she or did she not realise that she 
was a married woman with social duties, to say nothing of 
the respect she owed to her husband ? 

“The most generous and loving husband in the whole 
world!” the older Mrs. Iffield had added, with thin lips. 

“Cutting off with two young asses hardly out of school,” 
Ted had growled, as though that added insult to injury. 


168 Heirs Apparent 

Of course Evelyn had had to defend her rights. She had 
reminded her husband kindly but firmly that because he was 
getting old and disinclined to go out of an evening he could 
hardly expect her to be satisfied with a vegetable state of 
life. If so he was jolly well mistaken. She intended to go 
to a theatre when she liked and to dance now and then with 
any nice boy who cared to invite her. She rejoiced in her 
youth and was not going to develop into frowsy old age be¬ 
fore nature demanded its. dues. That expression—frowsy 
old age—had been taken as a deliberate insult to Ted’s 
mother, and poor old Ted who loved his mother this side 
of idolatry, with some fear, had rebuked Evelyn, rather 
harshly, for her “serpent’s tongue.” That had made Evelyn 
angry—very naturally. She had walked up to bed without 
another word and locked the door. After that there had been 
somewhat strained relations between her and Ted, with the 
elder Mrs. Iffield, playing the female Iago, dropping little 
poisonous words into his big, simple, asinine ears—“dear old 
boy!”—and watching Evelyn like a wicked old cat watches 
a pretty little mouse, ready for the pounce. 

“So we’ve got to be careful, Julian!” 

She was cunning in her amusing way, but not careful. 
Or at least her sense of care was not permanent and she 
threw it to the winds in impatient moods. Having, for in¬ 
stance, invented ingenious explanations to her mother-in- 
law why she should go to the dentist three days a week be¬ 
tween two and four, she pooh-poohed the possibility of being 
discovered, of reported by local gossip, walking hand in hand 
with Julian in a little wood beyond Gorse Hill, or taking tea 
with him alone in a bun shop at Guildford, or driving about 
the country with him in the Metallurgique. 

Julian warned her of this danger, but she merely shrugged 
her shoulders and laughed and said, “After all, what does it 
matter? We’re not doing anything wrong!” 

“No,” said Julian, “but those dentist appointments would 
make us look in the wrong if some one found out you didn’t 
keep them.” 

That was exactly what happened. The elder Mrs. Iffield 
had occasion to go to the dentist herself—perhaps she went 


Heirs Apparent 169 

there to confirm her daughter-in-law’s story of tooth-stop¬ 
ping, with pearl-like teeth and no sign of toothache. Her 
enquiries about Evelyn astonished the dentist. He had not 
had the pleasure of seeing her for some time. 

“My dear,” said the elder Mrs. Iffield, “I cannot think 
why you told me such outrageous fibs, and I should like to 
know what you have been doing on these afternoons.” 

Evelyn had brazened it out, not at all abashed. 

“Well, I did intend to go to the dentist. My teeth are in 
a lamentable state. But I couldn’t face the torture of it, so 
I went for little walks instead. I must get some exercise, 
dearest mother!” 

“Alone?” asked the elder Mrs. Iffield, quietly. 

“With Tiger Tim as my faithful companion and trust¬ 
worthy chaperon,” Evelyn had said, referring to her fox 
terrier. 

Ted’s mother had thought it very strange, this sudden 
passion for lonely walks, especially after that deceitful ex¬ 
cuse about the dentist. She mentioned the matter to Ted. 
That was obvious because of Ted’s repeated offers to teach 
Evelyn golf. If she wanted exercise, and he quite agreed 
that it was better than moping over French novels, why not 
take up the best game in the world? Then they could enjoy 
themselves together. 

Evelyn had declined the invitation. 

“I should only spoil sport, and make myself ridiculous. 
Besides, tennis is my game, and now I have Julian to play 
with.” 

That introduction of Julian’s name was diplomatic. His 
appearance three days a week to play tennis on her court 
with another couple now and again—Janet and Cyril once 
or twice—secured his position as an ordinary visitor, and 
disarmed suspicion of him as an “extra special” friend. 
Yet Julian was aware that the elder Mrs. Iffield was not en¬ 
tirely at ease in her mind about him. Sometimes he saw 
her spectacled eyes upon him doubtfully, and once, he 
thought, rather pitifully. 

Major Iffield himself, in spite of his reference to “young 
asses” on the night of Evelyn’s return from town, was al- 


170 Heirs Apparent 

ways cheery and good-natured to Julian when they hap¬ 
pened to meet, and went out of his way once or twice to 
have a talk with him about politics and things in general. 

In his simple way he was worried, like Julian’s father, 
about the international situation and unemployment in Eng¬ 
land, and the stagnation of trade. 

“I don’t like the look of things,” he said. “It seems to me 
we’ve rather fallen down after the war, and I’m not sure 
that the men are getting a square deal, after all they did. I’m 
a bit of a democrat. I take off my hat to poor old Tommy 
who did all the fighting and got precious little recognition. 
I wish you young fellows would get busy and give a lead to 
the world. Don’t let down the fellows who died to save us 
all.” 

Julian found himself getting to like Major Iffield, and yet 
he hated meeting him. He loathed the idea that this elderly 
man had a husband’s rights over Evelyn. It made him hot 
and sick sometimes. It was abominable that a child like 
Evelyn—she was nothing more than that—should be tied 
to this stodgy old buffer who liked to sit over his wine after 
dinner and fall asleep over the evening paper while his 
mother sat knitting in the corner, and Evelyn played Chopin 
and craved for something more exciting. Even when friends 
turned up—Ethel Harker and her brother, Cyril Buckland, 
or Bellamy, whom Evelyn called Binks, Major Iffield in¬ 
sisted on going to bed at ten o’clock and gave plain hints to 
the company that he objected to late hours. 

Yet he was conscious of his wife’s desire for a brighter 
life, and made one or two remarks which seemed to Julian 
rather pathetic and miserable. 

“If we weren’t so beastly hard up, and if I weren’t such 
a devotee of golf, it would be better to live in town. Evelyn 
gets rather bored at times, poor kid! But this old house is 
too big to sell, and I hate London anyhow.” 

At another time he revealed a secret anxiety, without be¬ 
ing aware of his admission. 

“What an epidemic of divorce these days, Perryam! The 
courts can hardly keep pace with them. There seem to be 
a lot of swine about nowadays, ready to smash up married 


Heirs Apparent 171 

life as lightly as they smoke a cigarette. They wouldn’t get 
any mercy from me if they came my way.” 

He laughed uneasily and seemed to regret his words. 

“Evelyn wouldn’t give them much chance. She has a 
quick eye for a rotter.” 

He Smiled at Julian in a friendly way and said he was 
glad his little wife had pleasant companions. 

He was tolerant, good-natured, affectionate to Evelyn, un¬ 
suspicious, in spite of the mother-in-law, yet also vaguely 
uneasy, because of the difference in years between himself 
and his wife, and her “restlessness.” 

Julian felt a twinge of conscience, yet argued with himself 
that there was no reason at all for that. As Evelyn said, 
there was “nothing wrong” between them. Comradeship 
was not wrong. An intimate and understanding friendship 
was not wrong. Even the secrecy of their constant meet¬ 
ings had no evil in it, being due to the necessity of avoiding 
foolish and unwarrantable scandal such as had befallen him 
with Audrey Nye. The only thing that distressed him some¬ 
what—most acutely, to be honest—was an occasional danger 
signal warning him, like a little clear bell in his brain, that 
this friendship might not last, as far as he was concerned, 
without one of those passionate episodes which Clatworthy 
had mentioned. Evelyn was not like Audrey with whom, 
as Clatworthy had said, a man might walk through tropical 
forests without “hecticity.” 

She had little kittenish ways which were rather alarming 
sometimes. She had a habit of snuggling up to him, as once 
when they sat together under the beech trees on Box Hill to 
which they had climbed hand in hand. It was quite de¬ 
serted there on a Wednesday afternoon, and they seemed 
alone together in the world—a world of green leaves 
through which the sun of June filtered with a playful light, 
where only a jack rabbit scuttled across the glades now and 
then. Evelyn took off her hat and put her head against 
his shoulder, as once in the Metallurgique, and played with 
his hand in her lap, and presently put it to her lips. 

“A nice, well-shaped, Adonis hand!” she said, and did not 
know how this touch of her lips made him tremble all over. 


172 Heirs Apparent 

At another time when they sat together in a field beyond 
Westcott, she lay with her head on his knees, like that boy 
and girl he had seen at Newlands Corner one day when he 
had walked over to Audrey’s home. 

“You can kiss me, if you like,” she said, “if you’re not too 
bashful and too cold.” 

Of course he had liked, and had kissed her closed eyes and 
smiling lips. 

Presently he spoke to her in a strained voice. 

“Do you think this is quite good, and safe? Aren’t we 
rather asking for trouble?” 

“Trouble? Why? I find it very good.” 

“Is it playing the game, altogether? I mean with that 
husband of yours?” 

“Oh, bother old Ted! He’s all right. What’s a kiss, any¬ 
how ?” 

To him it was tremendous, an experience which thrilled 
him with ecstasy, when it was Evelyn he kissed, though he 
had been so cold with Audrey Nye. 

Once she accused him of regretting their friendship— 
funking it, she said. She mocked at him for being a con¬ 
ventionalist, with the inherited inhibitions of his chapel-going 
grandfather. 

“You’re an Early Victorian,” she said, “afraid of the liber¬ 
ties won by modern youth. I believe you think I’m a wicked 
temptress luring you to sin. As a matter of fact, dear 
Julian, I am a very nice little comrade offering you the privi¬ 
lege of a refined and delicate friendship. If you don’t want 
it, say so, and I’ll find another ‘pal’ to save me from hope¬ 
less boredom.” 

Of course he protested against her accusations, and vowed 
that his character was as far removed from Early Victorian- 
ism as any man of the younger crowd. 

They quarrelled sometimes because of his “ridiculous 
jealousy” as she called it. That was when she went up to 
town several times to lunch with the man Bellamy, other¬ 
wise Binks, and still more when he met her coming from 
lunch in The White Horse at Dorking with Cyril Buckland, 
of all men. 


Heirs Apparent 173 

He was frightfully hurt at that. 

“What on earth do you want with that fellow Buckland?” 
he asked in a rage. “For one thing he’s making up to Janet, 
and secondly he’s a thoroughly poisonous person, and thirdly 
you told me you had a bit of a headache and wanted to stay 
at home.” 

“And fourthly, fifthly, and sixthly,” said Evelyn calmly, 
“I am complete mistress of my own movements and if my 
headache disappears I have a perfect right to lunch with my 
friend who offers to pay for it. And seventhly, eighthly and 
ninthly, I can’t understand why you get fussed if I give so 
much as a friendly glance at any one but yourself. You 
know perfectly well that you and I are extra special friends. 
But you can’t expect me to live like a cloistered nun, to all 
the world but you.” 

He did expect that, with the passionate feeling of what he 
still called “friendship,” and he could hardly be civil to Cyril 
Buckland when they met at Evelyn’s house for tennis or 
bridge. He was enraged at these times because his sulkiness 
only caused Evelyn to tease him by showing particular 
favour to this fellow and laughing at Cyril’s attempts at 
humour as though they were the highest form of wit. 

There was something like a scene between Cyril and him¬ 
self after one of those evenings at the Iffields. Evelyn had 
accepted an invitation from Cyril to lunch at the Ritz on 
the following Monday with Janet, in spite of a previous en¬ 
gagement with Julian to motor to Henley and do an after¬ 
noon on the river. It was a deliberate “let down,” as he 
could see by Evelyn’s whimsical and challenging glance at 
him, and his anger was not soothed by Cyril’s casual and 
condescending way of extending the invitation, as a kind of 
afterthought. 

“By the way, Julian, you might care to come along 
too, if you’re not too busy with that mystic book of 
yours.” 

Julian answered freezingly. 

“Thanks. I’ve another engagement.” 

“Oh, come along, Julian!” said Janet. “We’re going to 
do a matinee, and you can pair off with Evelyn.” 


174 Heirs Apparent 

“I don’t break engagements as lightly as some people,” 
said Julian, coldly. 

Evelyn laughed in her teasing way. 

“Not if the other party merely alters the place of rendez¬ 
vous ? Isn’t that standing too severely upon a point of preju¬ 
dice ?” 

“No,” said Julian. “It’s playing the rules of the game.” 

Evelyn answered him lightly. 

“It’s good to alter the rules when it makes a better game.” 

“That’s rather like cheating,” said Julian. 

It was a rude thing to say, and said rudely. Evelyn only 
laughed again, but Cyril raised his eyebrows over the card 
table and spoke to Julian like a schoolmaster chiding a small 
boy. 

“Remember your manners, laddy.” 

Julian went white to the lips, and felt a passionate anger 
threatening to shake his self-control. But he mastered him¬ 
self and answered in a calm, scornful voice: 

“I don’t take my lessons from you, Buckland, either in 
manners or morals.” 

Janet smacked his hand across the table. 

“Little children love one another!” she exclaimed. 

Evelyn remarked that the atmosphere was rather electric. 
She hoped there wouldn’t be a thunderstorm over the card 
table, or a storm in the teacups. The elder Mrs. Iffield in a 
chair by the piano paused in her knitting and stared across 
at Julian with her watchful eyes, in which again there was 
a strange look of pity, as though he were being tempted be¬ 
yond his strength. Major Iffield, who hated bridge, was 
absorbed in the sporting page of The Times. 

It was only when Cyril was drinking a whiskey after the 
drive home with Janet that the breeze developed between the 
two young men. They were alone together in the library 
while Janet had gone upstairs to say good night to her 
mother, who had already gone to bed. 

“Referring back,” said Cyril, raising his glass, “I didn’t 
quite like that remark about my morals, old man! Any 
sinister suggestion?” 

Julian gave a short laugh. 


Heirs Apparent 175 

“Perhaps you can supply your own interpretation.” 

Cyril put his glass down and looked at Julian in a friendly, 
candid way. 

“I don’t pretend to be a saint, young fellow, and I’ve seen 
a good bit of life for my age. Perhaps you’ll allow me to 
give you a friendly tip.” 

“I’m not asking for it,” said Julian. 

“Well, I’ll give it all the same. Those who live in glass 
houses shouldn’t throw stones.” 

“Meaning what?” asked Julian. 

“Meaning if I were you I wouldn’t rot up your young 
career by a love affair with a married woman, especially 
when she’s five years older than yourself, and only amusing 
herself with a nice boy. It’s deuced dangerous, old lad, be¬ 
lieve me.” 

For the second time that evening Julian lost all the colour 
in his face. He answered harshly, with a sudden break in 
his voice. 

“I don’t want any revelations of your dirty mind, Buck- 
land. Mind your own damned business.” 

For a second Cyril Buckland’s face flushed with anger and 
he swung out his chin and stood facing Julian in a threaten¬ 
ing way with a clenched fist. 

“By thunder!” he said. 

Then he took a deep breath and unclenched his fist and 
let his hand drop to his side while he gave a queer kind of 
laugh. 

“If you weren’t Janet’s brother—and so ridiculously 
young-—” he said quietly, “I might be tempted to hit you for 
those words.” 

“Forget my youth,” said Julian. “I’m not so young as all 
that. And as for Janet, I should be glad to relieve her of 
your unpleasant friendship.” 

Cyril Buckland put his hand on Julian’s shoulder with a 
hard grip. 

“I’m not going to quarrel, old lad. If you mean I’m not 
good enough for Janet, I agree. I’m a bit of a rotter. Al¬ 
ways have been. It’s in my blood, I guess. But I don’t like 
to see you steering for shipwreck at the beginning of your 


176 Heirs Apparent 

voyage—and Evelyn is the most wonderful and dangerous 
little siren I know. Fearfully dangerous because so enor¬ 
mously attractive! Have a care, that’s all I venture to sug¬ 
gest.” 

Something in Cyril Buckland’s way of speech disarmed 
Julian’s anger. Perhaps it was his confession of being a 
bit of a rotter and not good enough for Janet. He was 
candid, anyhow, and there was a ring of sincerity in his 
voice, and a kind of homage to Evelyn’s beauty and grace. 
Perhaps, after all, there was some truth in what he said. 
There was just a chance of danger in this friendship with 
Evelyn. If Julian once lost self-control—which, of course, 
he wouldn’t—he might find himself on the rocks. 

He shook himself free from Cyril’s grip, but without re¬ 
renewed hostility. 

‘‘Much obliged to you for your warning,” he said with 
icy sarcasm, “but it’s quite needless. Evelyn and I are noth¬ 
ing more than pals. May I suggest that you don’t seem to 
avoid the lady with that care which you recommend to me ?” 

Cyril Buckland poured himself out another whiskey and 
paused a moment before replying. His face flushed a little 
when he answered. 

“Evelyn Iffield and I have known each other for some 
time and understand each other perfectly. I amuse her a 
good deal. That’s all.” 

Janet came back, and the conversation ended. The two 
young men said good night to each other in a more friendly 
way than usual, at least on Julian’s side, for this conversa¬ 
tion had eased his sense of jealousy and made him sorry for 
Cyril Buckland. It was quite obvious that he had been in 
love with Evelyn and that she had turned him down, poor 
devil. 


XXI 


J ULIAN was aware that there were strained relations be¬ 
tween his father and mother, and he suspected for a time 
that he was the cause of it. His father was undoubtedly 
getting impatient and irritable because Julian did not produce 
any work. Only by occasional questions and remarks did he 
reveal this to Julian himself, for there was that incurable 
shyness between them which prevented any frank discussion 
—except in moments of crisis like his return from Oxford— 
and seemed to put an invisible barrier between them. But 
Julian overheard various remarks between his parents which 
suggested that his father was reviving the idea of making a 
journalist of him and that his mother was defending his con¬ 
tinued liberty. There was one conversation particularly 
which came to his ears by chance and startled him by the 
intensity of emotion with which his father and mother spoke. 

He happened to be reading the paper outside the break¬ 
fast room window on a Sunday morning. It was Victor 
Buckland’s paper, The Week, edited by his father, and he 
was scanning the pages with contemptuous eyes for its vul¬ 
gar headlines, its columns of divorce news, its smudgy pic¬ 
tures of bathing girls and dancing girls and its “powerful 
article” by Victor Buckland (portrait inset) in “Let Amer¬ 
ica Mind Its Own Business!” “One million circulation,” 
read Julian with the contempt of Balliol for the low scale of 
popular intelligence and the shame of a son for his father’s 
disgraceful means of livelihood. 

It was then that he heard his father speak loudly and 
harshly. 

“The boy is just lounging. It’s utterly demoralising.” 
“He’s all right,” said Mrs. Perryam. “Trying to find 
himself. Besides he’s too young for the slavery of Fleet 
Street.” 

“But I’m not too old! You never think of that.” 

177 


178 Heirs Apparent 

“Oh, well,” said Mrs. Perryam, lightly, “youth will be 
served. Now you’ve made a success, John, we can afford 
to give the children a good time.” 

“That’s all they think of,” answered Julian’s father. “A 
good time ! They never think how much it costs their father 
in drudgery, in anxiety, in distasteful work. I never get 
their companionship even. When I come home they go out. 
When I’m asleep they come in. What’s my reward for years 
of hard work and devotion?” 

“Success!” said Mrs. Perryam. “This jolly little house. 
A happy family. What more do you want, old dear?” 

“Lots more,” said Mr. Perryam. “I want affection, and 
I don’t get it. Not even from my wife.” 

“Don’t talk nonsense, John. I haven’t changed.” 

There was a moment’s silence, and then Julian’s father 
spoke again, bitterly. 

“You have changed. You think of nothing but society 
now, and new frocks, and titled friends. There’s that man 
Cornford—” 

“What about him?” asked Mrs. Perryam, sharply. 

“He’s always hanging round you. I don’t like it. You 
seem to forget you’re a married woman, with a grown-up 
family!” 

Julian rose from his seat outside the breakfast room 
window. He had not meant to listen to that conversation, 
and for a few moments had only listened idly, but now at 
those last words his face had flushed and he walked away 
down the garden path. Perhaps the sound of his steps star¬ 
tled his father and mother, for they were silent after his 
going. 

The words he had overheard reminded him of Janet’s 
ridiculous conversation one morning, and of other words— 
outrageous words—spoken by his grandfather. His mother 
had undoubtedly taken to the habit of going about with 
Lord Cornford in a curiously familiar way as though he 
belonged to the family. He had seen them together in the 
High Street when she went shopping and the handsome old 
peer held her parcels and helped her into his Daimler which 
he seemed to place at her service. She seemed to find 


Heirs Apparent 179 

amusement in these little gallantries, and Julian sympathised 
with her and felt a hot wave of indignation surge up to his 
brain because of his father’s absurd remarks. 

Why, in Heaven’s name, could there not be friendship 
between men and women, old and young, without suspicion, 
scandal, green-eyed jealousy? It was an infamous heritage 
of cave-man days, and old traditions of cruelty and hate 
creeping out of the lairs of primitive memory to make un¬ 
happiness in modern lives. Fortunately Youth had de¬ 
cided to do away with all such rubbish. They had revolted 
against it, thrust it into the scrap-heap of old abominations. 

Julian, after his wave of indignation, felt secretly amused 
that his mother should be in the same position as himself. 
She would understand his friendship with Evelyn, trust his 
honour, and rely on his perfect self-control. She would be 
useful as an ally in the ethics of comradeship. So he per¬ 
suaded himself, ignoring a sense of uneasiness which tried 
to spoil his peace of mind. 

But it was the very next night that his pride received a 
knockout blow and that he became aware of a weakness 
that could not be justified in that code of honour which was 
his substitute for religious law. 

Evelyn, Janet, and Cyril had gone up to town together for 
the lunch at the Ritz and a matinee at the Palace. On a 
point of pride he had not accompanied them, and passed a 
miserable day in his room, with only brief appearances for 
meals when he was irritable with his grandfather because 
the old man insisted upon narrating a news item which he 
had read in the morning’s papers. It was some case of an 
Oxford undergraduate who had run off with a Don’s daugh¬ 
ter, and the old man regarded it as a sign of the times with 
sinister reference to Julian himself. 

“In my opinion it’s a mistake to send boys to Oxford,” 
said the old man. “It leads them into loose and lazy ways 
and in nine cases out of ten unfits them for a decent Chris¬ 
tian life. I always said so to your father, but, of course, he 
wouldn’t listen to me.” 

“Now, Grandfather,” said Mrs. Perryam, “don’t prattle 
so much, but get on with your dinner.” 


180 Heirs Apparent 

“Don’t you speak to me like that!” answered the old 
gentleman, irritably. “It’s women that prattle. Not men. 
If they would only listen to what their elders say they would 
keep out of a deal of mischief. As I was telling you, Julian, 
about that Oxford lad—” 

“I don’t want to hear it,” said Julian. “It doesn’t interest 
me in the very least.” 

“Then I won’t tell you,” said his grandfather, “but it’s a 
portent all the same.” 

He lapsed into a fretful silence, chewing his food dis¬ 
tastefully, and now and again glancing at Julian with re¬ 
proachful eyes. 

After dinner, when Janet had come back with Cyril, 
Julian went round to the Iffields’ house, dragged there as 
though by a magnet, against his judgment and will power. 
Major Iffield, as he knew, had gone off to Bournemouth for 
a night, and the elder Mrs. Iffield was in bed with influenza. 
Evelyn would be alone. 

He found her alone, not at all surprised to see him, and 
evidently pleased. 

“Nice boy!” she said. “He forgives my treachery and 
comes with magnanimity and good temper.” 

“On the contrary,” said Julian, “I come in a vile temper 
and without forgiveness. Think what a good time we could 
have had at Henley!” 

“Think what a good time we’re going to have now,” an¬ 
swered Evelyn. “All alone, without husband, mother-in-law, 
or any vexations.” 

She seemed anxious to make amends for her broken en¬ 
gagement, and was so comradely and kind that Julian for¬ 
got his ill-temper. She played him his favourite pieces for 
an hour or more, while he sat smoking as on his first evening 
in her house, and every now and then she looked across the 
piano and smiled at him and once kissed the tips of her 
fingers to him. 

Then she drew up a deep arm chair and made him sit in 
it while she sat at his feet on a footstool and put her head 
against his knees and smoked one of his cigarettes. 

For an hour or more they spoke of casual things—the 


Heirs Apparent 181 

tennis tournament at Wimbledon, Janet’s new frock, the 
play they had seen, the French novel she had lent to Julian. 
Suddenly she announced a piece of news which took Julian’s 
breath away. 

“Ted and I are going to Italy for six months or so. In 
the autumn.” 

“Six months!” 

He spoke after a moment’s silence, and there was a tremor 
in his voice. If she had said six years, or six centuries, 
it would not have seemed longer—not more of a break to 
their friendship. 

“Yes. We don’t start till October. It was Ted’s idea, and 
the mother-in-law’s. They fixed it between them. I shall 
be horribly and disastrously bored. I adore Italy, but the 
idea of trapesing round with the old lady and her Baedeker 
—to say nothing of Ted and his plus fours—fills me with 
terror.” 

Julian was silent again for a few moments, and then he 
spoke in a strained voice. 

“Why go ?” he asked. 

Evelyn did not answer him directly. She put her head up 
and glanced at him sideways. 

“As a married woman I’m supposed to obey. Ted’s get¬ 
ting suspicious of my friends—Binks—Billy Harker—Cyril 
Buckland—you, my little one! Drop by drop the mother-in- 
law’s poison works like madness in what he is pleased to call 
his brain. We’ve had scenes lately. The tyrant which is in 
every man begins to assert itself! He’s afraid for me!” 

“It’s an outrage!” said Julian, hotly. 

“Yes,” said Evelyn. “I’m being carried off like a cap¬ 
tive.” 

“It’s unfair!” said Julian. “What’s going to happen to 
me?” 

He was hardly aware of his words, and only conscious 
of a numbness in his heart because this girl was going away 
from him for six months which was as long as for ever. It 
would be insufferable. He would feel cut in half without 
her. All the interest of life would go with her. 

Evelyn put her hand on his knee. 


182 Heirs Apparent 

“Poor Julian! We’ve been good friends, haven’t we? 
You’ll miss me a little bit?” 

“I shall miss you like Hell!” said Julian, in a low, passion¬ 
ate voice. 

Evelyn laughed a little at that. 

“It’s not an elegant simile, Julian! Am I as wicked as all 
that?” 

“You know what I mean,” said Julian. “Or rather, you 
don’t know what I mean. I just can’t do without you. I 
might as well be dead or blind. You mustn’t go, Evelyn. 
Don’t you know I love you like blazes ?” 

“As hot as that ?” she asked. 

She was kneeling before him now, with her elbows on his 
knees and her little pointed chin on her folded hands, look¬ 
ing into his eyes. 

Julian avoided her look, and spoke low, with a queer 
thrill in his voice. 

“I’ve called it friendship up to now. It was your word. 
But I’ve been lying to myself. It’s different from friendship. 
It’s the real thing, I suppose. I mean it’s love as far as I’m 
concerned. What the dickens am I going to do about it— 
if you go off and leave me in the lurch ? Or if you don’t ? 
I suppose I’m in the cart anyway. As you’re married and 
all that.” 

Evelyn Iffield smiled at him with her head on one side. 

“I’ve been a wicked little cat,” she said. “I oughtn’t to 
have let you get like that. You’re too young to—hurt. 
Sorry, Julian!” 

Julian stood up, so that her hands fell from his knees, 
and he turned away from her, so that she should not see his 
face. 

“I am hurt,” he said. “It’s going to knock me edgewise.” 

She still knelt there, as he had left her, looking at him 
with a queer little smile about her lips and a look of amuse¬ 
ment in her dark eyes. 

He went on speaking in a jerky monologue, to himself 
rather than to her. 

“I was an awful fool. So sure of myself. Platonic 


Heirs Apparent 183 

friendship, and all that—Modern Youth and its point of 
view! As if human nature altered! I might have known 
I should be caught out—and I wanted to play the game by 
Major Iffield. He’s been frightfully decent to me, and he 
loves every hair of your head, and after all he is your hus¬ 
band !” 

“Yes,” said Evelyn. “After all he is my husband!” 

She spoke quietly, but with a little irony, as though se¬ 
cretly amused. 

Julian faced round on her, and his voice rang out rather 
loudly. 

“Evelyn, just tell me this. Have you been playing about 
with me? Am I just a kid to you—a toy that you wound 
up just to see how it worked before you broke its spring 
and let it drop? I’d hate to think that!” 

Evelyn’s face was swept with colour. His words took 
the smile from her lips for the first time. She sprang up and 
came close to him and put her arms about him. 

“I’m not so bad as that! Not quite so bad, Julian dear. 
But, of course, you’re wonderfully young compared with 
me. I wanted you for my comrade. You’re so sweet and 
handsome and fresh! But I didn’t want you to get too fond 
of me. I didn’t want to spoil things for you. I’m fright¬ 
fully sorry!” 

Julian looked into her eyes for the first time since his 
outburst. 

“I don’t want you to be sorry,” he said. “I want to know 
if you love me as I love you—that is to say, to the exclu¬ 
sion of everything else, and everybody else.” 

She was tempted to lie to him, knowing that the truth 
would be very hurtful, but that straight look of his seemed 
to make her lie difficult. 

“Not as far as that,” she said. “I can’t exclude Ted alto¬ 
gether. He’s too big!” 

She tried to put him off with a joke, to make him laugh. 
But he answered with a sudden passion. 

“Look here, if you—liked—me we could cut off together. 
Why not? I’m ready to face the thing through.” 


184 Heirs Apparent 

She shook her head. 

“Not so easy—even if I wanted to. You haven’t started a 
career yet, Julian. We should starve to death.” 

He answered her with extreme bitterness. 

“Oh, I see! You make it a financial matter?” 

She looked at him with a whimsical smile, and was not 
angry. 

“Finance enters into these questions. Sad but true! I’ve 
not enough for two, and you’ve not enough for one. Besides, 
you know, you’re a moralist, Julian! You want to play the 
game. It wouldn’t be quite your style of game, would it? 
Not cricket! Think of poor old Ted, who dotes on me 
though he is a tyrant!” 

“You haven’t thought of him much,” said Julian with 
angry sarcasm. “You let me kiss you. That wasn’t quite 
the game either to him or to me. You must have known 
that all this friendship talk was humbug. Our secret meet¬ 
ings, our lonely walks together—didn’t you know how they 
would end, as far as I’m concerned? Yes, you knew all 
right, and now you draw back, and play the respectable 
married woman. I don’t call that playing the game.” 

“The old, old story,” said Evelyn. “The woman tempted 
me!” 

She gave a satirical little laugh in which there was a 
note of anger. 

“You’re rather an egoist, aren’t you?” she asked, after a 
moment’s silence. “You don’t think of my side of the case. 
You were tempted. Well, don’t you think I’ve been tempted 
by your White Knight manners, your boyish gallantries, 
your ardour and eagerness ? I’m five years older than you! 
Yes, I ought to have known better. But it’s because of those 
five years’ difference that my temptations are greater than 
yours. For me time is slipping away, with a dull husband 
and a watchful mother-in-law. I see my youth being wasted, 
this beauty of mine. The end of adventure! . . . Why, it’s 
wonderful that I’m still loyal to Ted. I ought to wear a 
halo—though it might slip off one day. You never can 
tell. And as for you, Julian, I thought you were one of the 
modern young men, who could understand comradeship, and 


Heirs Apparent 185 

keep cool, and not go off the deep end like the romantic 
youth of yesterday. You’ve always said so!” 

“I was a perfect ass to say so,” was Julian’s answer, in a 
less broken voice. “And I think you knew from the be¬ 
ginning that it wouldn’t work. You’ve had experience.” 

“Oh, well, if you put it like that,” said Evelyn, becoming 
rather pale, “I’ve no pity for you. You can leave this house 
at once, and I’ll console myself with older friends whose 
manners belong to the age of chivalry which has disappeared 
with the younger crowd. Cyril Buckland, par exemple, who 
may be less innocent but is more respectful.” 

There was complete silence between them. It was broken 
by Julian who spoke in a beaten way. 

“I deserve that. I was a cad to say such things. I ought 
to be kicked. But I don’t know what the deuce to do. I’m 
knocked all ends up because I love you most frightfully, 
and it’s made hay of all my notions. When you go away I 
shall be lost. What’s the use of life without you, Evelyn? 
I want you as I want life itself, and it’s no use pretending.” 

She held out her hands to him, all her anger gone, and a 
look of pity in her dark eyes. But he turned away from her 
and put his hands up to his face. In a moment she was by 
his side, her arms round his neck. 

“Julian, I’m sorry! I oughtn’t to have let things get like 
this! It’s quite true what you said. It amused me to play 
with you, and I loved your comradeship. But I didn’t know 
I’d hurt you so much. My poor boy! My poor little lover! 
So young! So fresh! . . . Oh, I know I’ve hurt you, and 
I’m sorry beyond words, Julian.” 

She dragged his head down and kissed him, and he put his 
arms about her and returned her kisses and said silly things. 

“It’s all right, Evelyn, so long as we’re friends. I’m not 
such a cad. I’ll go away. Of course you’ve got to stick to 
your husband, and all that. Let’s play the game. Only I 
wish it hadn’t happened like this. Making a fool of my¬ 
self!” 

She said “Hush! Hush!” and kissed him again. 

It was then that the door opened and the elder Mrs. If- 
field stood in the room, looking at them both, listening, with 


186 Heirs Apparent 

a cold fury in her pale eyes. She was in a dressing gown of 
grey silk, covering her night gown, and her white hair was 
uncoiled and tied behind with a black ribbon. She looked an 
austere, sinister, frightening figure. 

“Evelyn,” she said quietly, “you had better come to bed. 
I shall tell your husband to-morrow. I don’t know what he 
will do. This kind of thing is beyond all sufferance.” 

Evelyn faced round on her. 

“You can tell him what you like, mother. He’s too loyal 
to believe your sinister suggestions.” 

The elder Mrs. Iffield turned to Julian and spoke to him 
with a hard kind of pity. 

“I don’t blame you very much, Mr. Perryam. You’re too 
young to understand the character of Evelyn. You’re not 
the only boy whose heart she has broken. She is innately 
immoral, and quite without compassion.” 

All the colour ebbed from Evelyn’s face, leaving it dead 
white, her dark eyes shining with a fire of hate. 

“Go to your room, mother,” she commanded. “My innate 
immorality as you call it is not so poisonous as your evil 
old mind, spying, watching, plotting, hinting, slandering, 
making mischief between me and Ted. One day you’ll drive 
me into wickedness. Just to get away from you. Why 
can’t you keep to your bed instead of crawling down here 
like a witch in a fairy tale?” 

The elder Mrs. Iffield took a seat in a high-backed chair 
near the piano. 

“I am here to defend my son’s honour,” she said grimly. 
“I shall stay here until this young man has gone.” 

It was a ludicrous as well as a tragic situation, but only 
Evelyn saw the comic side of it. 

She gave a shrill laugh and put her hand on Julian’s arm. 

“You had better go, dear Julian,” she said. “My delight¬ 
ful mother-in-law is as obstinate as a Flanders mule, and my 
love for her is so great that I shouldn’t like her to catch a 
death of cold. In spite of her sense of propriety she’s not 
ashamed of appearing before a young gentleman in nothing 
but a night gown and a bit of silk. That’s Early Victorian!” 

Julian was deeply embarrassed and distressed. Some 


Heirs Apparent 187 

revelation came to him of the forces of hate and suspicion 
at work in this house between these two women, the old 
woman with her suspicion and dislike, Evelyn with her 
youth and gaiety and sense of revolt, the husband trying to 
keep peace between them. What torture for Evelyn! No 
wonder she yearned for the adventure of youth! . . . He 
left the house alone, shutting the front door quietly behind 
him, and as he walked down the drive he knew that some¬ 
thing had happened to him which had quite changed his 
outlook on life. Something had broken inside him. He 
was no longer a boy, but a man hurt by life. It was not his 
heart that was broken. Modern science disbelieved in that. 
It was his pride, his sense of superiority to life, his arro¬ 
gance. He had believed himself immune from passion, and 
suddenly he had crashed into its flaming gulfs. He had be¬ 
lieved in the immunity of modern youth from the folly of 
unreasonable romance, and here he was its victim and its 
plaything. He had believed that his code—“playing the 
game”—was impregnable against the assaults of the baser 
temptations, and here he had found himself panting with 
love for a married woman whose husband he liked—quali¬ 
fying for a column in the divorce news of The Week. 

A sense of shame and humiliation overwhelmed him. 
How scornful he would have been of any Oxford friend 
who had confessed to such a thing! And worst of all, he 
was madly in love with a girl who had just played with him, 
teasing him into love, just to amuse herself, watching his 
ardour grow to white heat as an experiment in psychology, 
breaking him like a toy and then feeling a little sorry for 
her carelessness. She was sorry, yes, but that was hardly 
good enough! . . . 

He cried out in the darkness as he walked home, and it 
was like the cry of a wounded animal. 


XXII 


J ULIAN avoided the attention of his family—he was 
conscious of a woebegone face and hang-dog look— 
by leaving the house immediately after an early lunch and 
motoring aimlessly round the countryside at a breakneck 
pace. 

In the light of day the episode of the previous evening 
seemed remote and improbable. Had he really broken 
down so hopelessly and lost control of his steering gear in 
such a weak and ridiculous way as his memory suggested? 
He had behaved like a perfect cad to Evelyn, and she had 
been wonderfully patient and kind with him. She had not 
asked for his egregious display of passion and temper, and 
that scene when the elder Mrs. Iffield had appeared—“like 
a witch in a fairy tale”—had been all his fault. Evelyn 
had tried to comfort him like an elder sister with a small 
boy who had fallen down and cut his knees and started 
howling. There was nothing more in her kisses than that. 
He had put her completely into the cart. The mother-in- 
law would report to the Major, and there would be the 
devil to pay—mostly by Evelyn. Probably Major Iffield 
would come round and want to bash his head. Well, he 
deserved it. Anyhow, he would have to clear out. That 
was certain. Now that he had made such an ass of him¬ 
self and found himself out—it had been a pretty finding!—- 
he couldn’t even claim Evelyn’s comradeship. He couldn’t 
trust himself to resume the old relationship, which in any 
case had been a fraud on his part. Platonic friendship! 
Not with Evelyn playing on every nerve, thrilling him by 
the slightest touch, laugh, movement, or word! Evelyn 
was not like the Audreys of the world. There was some 
magic in her, some terrific pull of attraction, such a lure 
as made Ulysses tie himself to the mast when the sirens 
called. . . . He would have to clear out, and try to mend 

188 


Heirs Apparent 189 

the broken bits of himself, and pretend to some other in¬ 
terest in life. What interest ? He stared down a cold vista 
of years without Evelyn and they looked remarkably 
dreary. His light had gone out. There would be no more 
laughter for him. Everything would be one huge boredom 
and futility. But he couldn’t stay in Evelyn’s neighbour¬ 
hood, from now till October. For her sake as well as his 
own he would have to get away. How? Where? What 
to do? He would have to think it out. . . . 

While he was thinking it out, with a frown on his fore¬ 
head and the sun in his eyes, he saw a black figure in the 
road before him and a hand raised. He recognised the 
young priest, Father Rivington, to whom he had been intro¬ 
duced one night by Audrey. He stood there smiling when 
Julian pulled up within a yard of him. 

“Sorry!” he said. “Are you by any chance going West- 
cott way? I want to call on Frank Nye, and it’s a bit of 
a slog! My push-bike has crocked up.” 

Julian hesitated. He did not feel like calling on Frank 
Nye, in spite of Audrey’s plea for him to “keep an eye” on 
her brother. He didn’t feel like any kind of human inter¬ 
course with this crisis in his mind. But he had no definite 
journey before him, and it seemed uncivil to refuse. 

“By all means!” he answered. 

“If you’re not pushed for time you might like a glass of 
good cider,” said the young priest. “My house is not a 
stone’s throw away.” 

Julian refused, and then, being pressed, yielded. There 
was something friendly about this fellow which he liked. 
And he had a queer thought about him which prevented 
the refusal of a kindly invitation. This young man— 
Evelyn’s age, perhaps—was a priest and dedicated to per¬ 
petual celibacy. The lure of women—and he must meet 
them about the roads of life—must mean nothing to him. 
By his priestly vows he would have to resist even Evelyn’s 
grace and beauty. All the Evelyns of life! How on earth 
did he manage it? What secret did he hold to guard him¬ 
self against passion, and such an episode as that of last 
night? He was a tall, good-looking fellow and looked 


190 Heirs Apparent 

human. Damn queer! It would be good to know his 
spell word. 

The priest took him into his house, a little rose-covered 
cottage next to a miniature church with a few graves in the 
churchyard, and left him in the sitting room while he went 
to fetch the cider. Julian looked about him, and noticed 
the photograph of a pretty girl on the mantelpiece, and the 
crest of Merton College over the bookshelf, and a pair of 
sculls over the doorway. Oxford, and a rowing man. 
Next to the portrait of the pretty girl were photographs 
of young officers, and across one of them was scrawled the 
words, “To the best Padre on the Western Front.” A mili¬ 
tary chaplain in the jolly old war. . . . There were other 
indications of character and career which told Julian some¬ 
thing about the man. On the table was a big prayer book 
lying by a Dunhill pipe and a tin of John Cotton—strange 
contiguity! Over the bookshelf was a, print of the Ma¬ 
donna and Child after Raphael, and on the bookshelf 
Julian’s eyes caught the titles of the Oxford Book of Eng¬ 
lish Verse, Rupert Brooke’s poems, Chesterton’s “Dickens,” 
Belloc’s “Mercy of Allah,” Compton Mackenzie’s “Sinister 
Street,” and Young Huxley’s “Crome Yellow.” A medise- 
valist, but up to date in his taste of books. 

“Not a bad drink on a hot day,” said the young priest, 
coming back with the cider. “If you’d like a whiskey, I can 
give it you. But I don’t^recommend it so early in the day!” 

“No,” said Julian. “It’s not a habit of mine.” 

The priest spoke of Audrey and said, “Splendid girl, I 
should say. Very angry with me, though!” 

“Why?” asked Julian. 

Father Rivington hesitated, and then laughed. 

“I thought you knew. She thinks I converted her father 
and made him leave the Church of England.” 

“Didn’t you?” asked Julian, with a touch of hostility at 
the remembrance. 

“Not in the least,” said the priest. “I can’t flatter myself 
on that score. Mr. Nye was like Paul on the road to 
Damascus. He had a blinding vision. I was merely the 
instrument of his reception into the Catholic Church.” 


Heirs Apparent 191 

“A damned shame anyhow,” said Julian. “It's thrust 
the whole family into poverty.” 

The priest was not shocked by his words. He seemed 
rather amused by them. 

“I’m sorry for Mrs. Nye,” he said. “It was a bad blow 
to her. She's getting on in life and it’s hard to uproot 
and change one’s whole scheme. She’ll be happier when 
she comes round to her husband’s way of thinking. Pov¬ 
erty won’t matter after that.” 

“Why not?” asked Julian. “Poverty is hellish, to my 
mind.” 

The young priest laughed. 

“It’s a relative term, anyhow, and we shall all be poor 
when the Socialists get into power. Why not? It’s better 
than fat wealth and selfishness. Not that I’m a Socialist! 
I’m all for liberty and the rights of the individual.” 

“I thought you were a Catholic priest,” said Julian, with 
cold satire. 

“So I am.” 

“Well, in that case, you believe in suppressing the indi¬ 
vidual. The tyranny of faith and all that. Unalterable 
dogma, to believe or go to blazes.” 

“Well, we have our faith,” said Father Rivington. 
“Within that there’s liberty, for every kind of type, crank, 
rebel, reformer, idealist, oddity.” 

Julian did not pursue the subject. He did not wish for 
theological discussion, especially with a Catholic priest, with 
all his arguments cut and dried. 

“Do you get any society here?” he asked. 

Father Rivington mentioned one or two families. His 
particular patron was Lady Lavington, the young war 
widow. She looked after the flowers in his church, and 
was very helpful and kind. Did Julian know her at all? 

Yes, Julian had met her. She was a remarkably pretty 
woman with dark hair and eyes. 

He sat silent for a moment, thinking intently, while the 
young priest watched him with friendly eyes. Then he 
asked a direct, startling question. 

“What would happen if you fell in love with her?” 


192 Heirs Apparent 

Father Rivington was certainly startled. He sat up with 
a jerk, and his face flushed. 

“Look here—Perryam!” 

Then he laughed heartily, without a trace of anger left 
in his expression. 

“That was rather a knock-out blow. But I see your 
point. You mean, supposing I fell in love—as a Catholic 
priest—with any charming lady who happened to be kind 
and helpful ?” 

“Yes,” said Julian. “What would you do about it? Very 
awkward, wouldn’t it be?” 

“Extremely awkward,” said Father Rivington. 

His lips were curled into a humorous smile and his eyes 
were mirthful. 

“These things happen,” said Julian. “It’s useless to pre¬ 
tend they don’t. You’re human, I suppose, like the rest 
of us.” 

Though he did not know it, he had given himself away 
to this priest, as though he had told a plain tale. Father 
Rivington’s eyes rested on him with a little smiling pity in 
which was understanding. 

“Extremely human,” he said. “Subject to all the ordi¬ 
nary laws of nature, including temptation. But of course 
we have to resist. That’s all.” 

“Not easy,” said Julian. 

“Not at all easy,” said the priest. “Mental agony, some¬ 
times, I daresay. But of course we get a good deal of 
help. Faith, prayer, love of God, the ordinary decent code 
of honour, belonging to most gentlemen—playing the game 
and all that—and loyalty to our vows. On the whole we 
avoid trouble. We call it technically ‘avoiding the occa¬ 
sion of sin.’ Put into vulgar parlance one might say we 
give these things a miss as much as possible.” 

“I see,” said Julian, without conviction. 

Father Rivington searched his face with his friendly 
eyes. 

“When fellows I know get mixed up with women they 
can’t marry unless they want to be disloyal to their code, 


Heirs Apparent 193 

I always advise them to do a bunk. It’s safest. It’s no 
good playing around. Of course if they believe in 
prayer—” 

“I don’t,” said Julian. 

“Then it’s more difficult,” said Father Rivington. “But 
even in that case, when fellows have no religion of any 
kind, there’s a sort of worldly wisdom that’s helpful. I 
always think, for instance, that counteracting interests are 
worth trying. What they call the sublimation of sex in 
the Freudian jargon.” 

“What the devil’s that?” asked Julian. 

“Oh, working out one’s imagination and vitality in other 
ways—literature, sport, politics, art, any job in life. After 
all, these love episodes are only one phase of life. Not so 
enormously important as to wreck one’s whole mind, and 
weaken one’s will power until one is merely the slave of 
passion. The romanticists are to blame for a good deal of 
that stuff. They dwell on it, fuss over it, over-emphasise 
it, wallow in it, make a dark tragedy over trivialities of 
sentiment. I like a fellow to take a knock, square his 
shoulders, and face up to life as a whole.” 

“It sounds good,” said Julian, with his habitual touch 
of sarcasm. 

The young priest smiled. 

“I admit it’s not easy always. It’s the best line of action 
though, barring supernatural aid. What you call supersti¬ 
tion, I expect.” 

“Yes,” said Julian. 

“By Jove,” said the priest, drawing a deep breath and 
changing the subject as though his thoughts had suddenly 
jumped a length, “there’s such a lot to do in the world, and 
the younger crowd isn’t doing it. That’s what makes me 
disheartened. These little love affairs! Oh, Lord! . . . 
When old Europe is on the edge of a precipice, and all 
our leaders are like sleep walkers, and if we’re not damned 
careful we shall find ourselves in the fiery pit again, tearing 
at each other’s throats. When’s Youth going to take 
things seriously and give a new lead to the world?” 


194 Heirs Apparent 

“I fancy I’ve heard that question before,” said Julian. 

“Any answer?” asked Father Rivington, with a straight 
look. 

“Youth doesn’t care a damn,” said Julian. “Why should 
it? And what is Youth, anyhow? I’m Youth! I can’t 
even shape my own life, to say nothing of the world, which 
is an unknown quantity, as far as I’m concerned, full of 
nasty old men, slanderous women, bloody fools, and rather 
decent, stupid, well-meaning people who read The Week 
and other journals of low quality and large circulations.” 

This priest who had been an Oxford Blue and a padre 
in the Great War, sat nursing his knee thoughtfully, and 
it was quite a time before he answered. 

“There’s more in the world than that. There are mil¬ 
lions of people waiting for a lead, a call to the spirit, a 
little more light. They’re not stupid. They’re only be¬ 
wildered. They’re not bloody fools. They have, mostly, a 
wonderful commonsense which wants to be spiritualised 
and guided. If you call to the worst in them, the worst 
will come out. If you call to the best you will get it too, 
like a miracle. Look at the sacrifice of youth in the War. 
Those boys!— The wonder of them, in mud and lice and 
shell fire and stinking death. Heroic beyond words. Im¬ 
mortal in their courage and quality of spirit. On every 
fighting front, and on both sides of the line! Something 
ought to come out of that. It can’t all be wasted. There 
is still that spirit in the world if we don’t fritter it away, 
and lapse into carelessness, and forget those fellows who 
died in the trenches that we might live, and make a better 
world to live in.” 

Julian sat there moodily. He had heard these things 
before—too often. Yet somehow this priest fellow spoke 
of them with less cant and more honesty. He had seen 
those fighting men and lived with them. He had known 
the realities of war. Probably he had lived daily with death 
round him, and with him. It must have been rather fright¬ 
ful, in spite of the adventure. And it was pretty good that 
he still had a kind of optimism in life and the common- 
sense of men—given “a call to the spirit”—whatever that 


Heirs Apparent 195 

might mean. Anyhow he was a gentleman, and well- 
meaning. 

“Aren’t we talking rather a lot?” asked Julian. “What 
about that fellow Frank Nye?” 

The young priest jumped up from his chair. 

“Yes, you’re right, and I’ve bored you stiff!” 

They went back to Julian’s machine, and on the way to 
Westcott the priest mentioned casually that Frank Nye 
seemed as happy as a bird with the girl he had found. 

“I’m persuading them to get married,” he said. 

Julian gave a jerk to his steering wheel. 

“Good God! That’s a crime, isn’t it?” 

The priest seemed to see a joke somewhere. 

“I hope not. . . . They’re jibbing a little. Especially 
the girl who doesn’t want to drag Frank down. She seems 
to think she would drag him down more if she wore a 
wedding ring. As a matter of fact, I think she’ll raise him 
up. She’s no end of a good sort, I fancy.” 

“A coster or something, isn’t she?” asked Julian. 

“Not a bit of it,” said the priest. “Comes of yeoman 
stock—the best in England—though it’s true the father is 
a market gardener in a small way and inclined to get fud¬ 
dled in local pubs. But a sturdy old man and devoted to 
Frank.” 

“Poor devil!” said Julian, alluding to Frank and not to 
the father. 

“Old Horton used to be a Papist before he forgot his 
penny catechism,” said Father Rivington. “The girl is just 
a pagan, but I have hopes of her.” 

“More proselytising!” said Julian. “They’d have burnt 
you at the stake a few centuries ago.” 

“Yes. I shan’t get martyrdom,” said Father Rivington. 
“Unless,” he added cheerfully, “England goes Bolshevik!” 

Frank Nye was slightly, but not very much, embarrassed 
to see Julian and the young priest step into his market 
garden. He was in khaki breeches and gaiters and his old 
blue shirt, with the wire-haired terrier at his heels with 
whom Julian had first met him on the road to Clandon. 
He had been working in some strawberry beds, and his 


196 Heirs Apparent 

hands were stained with red juice. By his side was a tall 
girl with a ruddy face, and hazel eyes, and a mass of honey- 
coloured hair. She wore a blue overall the colour of 
Frank’s shirt and a lavender sun-bonnet under which she 
blushed very deeply at the sight of the two young men. 

“Hullo, Padre,” said Frank. “Come to make more mis¬ 
chief in a humble Surrey village? How’s that family of 
mine whom you’ve cast into ruin?” 

“Your father’s got a job,” said the priest. “Travelling 
a History of England on the hire system. Thinks it a 
great joke.” 

“He would,” said Frank drily. “He’d praise God and 
laugh heartily at the lovely jest of life if his wife and chil¬ 
dren dropped dead of starvation. That’s the consolation 
of your simple faith!” 

The girl laid her hand on Frank’s arm and laughed. 

“You shouldn’t talk like that,” she said. 

“Oh, I’m a truth-teller,” said Frank. “I say what I 
mean, and mean what I say. A rare quality, these days.” 

He gave his fruit-stained hand to Julian and said, “That’s 
strawberry juice, not the blood of innocents. How’s every¬ 
thing?” 

“More or less the same,” said Julian. “Do you like this 
as well as Banking?” 

Frank grimaced at him. 

“A damned sight better. Mens sana in corpore sano. 
It’s the open air, anyhow, with the sun on my face. And 
you should see me among the fruits and flowers of the 
earth. They grow while I look at ’em. I talk to them 
and they burgeon!” 

The girl in the lavender sun-bonnet laughed again. 

“That’s true. He’s a wonder in the garden. Father 
thinks a lot of him.” 

Frank pulled her by the ear. 

“Oh, does he? Well, I don’t think much of Father. 
The drunken old devil!” 

He put his hand to his mouth and shouted “Father! . . . 
Come and talk nicely to the pretty gentlemen!” 

An elderly man with a bronzed bearded face under an 


Heirs Apparent 197 

old straw hat stepped out of a greenhouse and strolled 
down the pathway of red bricks between the strawberry 
beds, smoking a short pipe. 

Julian thought he had the look of an Elizabethan seaman 
and liked his hazel eyes—the colour of his daughter’s. He 
lifted his hat with a touch of dignity and said, “Good day, 
gentlemen. Thirsty weather!” 

Frank gave him a dig with his elbow and roared with 
laughter. 

“Hark at that! Always thinking of beer!” 

“Yes,” said Mr. Horton. “I like my drop of beer. But 
when I say thirsty weather I mean for the soil which is fair 
parched.” 

He turned to the young priest and nodded towards Frank. 

“That young fellow is always having his bit of fun! But 
he’s good in the garden. Made a wonderful change 
already.” 

“Come and have a look round,” said Frank. 

Julian went with him through the garden and into the 
greenhouses, listening to Frank Nye’s remarks of a tech¬ 
nical nature without much understanding, knowing nothing 
of horticulture. 

“I suppose you think I’m a fool to go in for this sort 
of thing?” asked Frank presently. “A low grade job, eh?” 

“Is there any future in it?” asked Julian doubtfully. 

“Oh, hang the future!” said Frank. “This present is as 
far as I look.” 

He glanced at Julian with a sidelong smile, in a quizzing 
way. 

“What do you think of my Nancy? Below the caste line 
I expect.” 

“She seems nice,” said Julian, in a non-committal way. 

“Rotten word ‘nice,’ ” said Frank. “She’s worth all your 
pretty ladies. More truth in her. More sense. Anyhow 
she’s my mate—and she thinks I’m a fairy prince! Finds 
all the virtues in me! Would kiss my muddy boots. That’s 
worth something, I guess.” 

“Lots,” said Julian. 

He had a touch of envy of Audrey’s brother. It was 


198 Heirs Apparent 

good to have a “mate.” He would never have one. All 
that was finished for him. 

“The padre wants to marry us and make us respectable,” 
said Frank in his blunt whimsical way. “Rather old- 
fashioned, don’t you think, and quite unnecessary? Still it 
would please the governor who thinks I’m living in a state 
of sin. I really don’t mind either way. Nance is afraid 
to fasten the shackles on me. Thinks I might want to break 
away one day, and doesn’t want to stand in my light.” 

“Perhaps you might,” said Julian. “If you happened to 
fall in love with a girl of your own class.” 

Frank answered impatiently, with a jerk of the head. 

“Oh, damn my class! I’ve finished with that. Nobilitas 
virtus non stemma, and all the rest of it, as I was taught 
to say at Marlborough.” 

He laughed to himself, as though pleased with this Latin 
tag, and then switched off to another line of thought: 

“The padre is after Nance. God’s love, Hell fires, and 
all that. Well, I don’t mind. Women seem to want re¬ 
ligion. It seems to reconcile them to the absurdities of life. 
Superstition has its uses.” 

“So I’m beginning to think,” said Julian. He thought 
back to his conversation with Father Rivington. The fellow 
seemed to get some strength from his religion, a power of 
resistance, and even a cheerful acceptance of things like 
poverty, and self-sacrifice, and death, as he had found it 
in war. It was worth having, perhaps—a faith like that 
in unbelievable things! 

“How’s Audrey?” he asked, abruptly. 

“Got a job and reinforcing the Governor’s weekly wage,” 
said Frank. He said it was “something in the slums”— 
typist secretary to a Labour Member with a bug for re¬ 
forming the world. 

“Poor old Audrey!” he said. “No fun catching the early 
train and stinting her healthy appetite with an egg on 
toast at lunch time. I’ve had some!” 

Julian sent his love to her, and said good-bye, and mo¬ 
tored off without Father Rivington who accepted Frank’s 
invitation to tea. 


XXIII 


O N his return home Julian was instantly aware of sen¬ 
sational, and extremely disagreeable happenings. It 
was old Mary who revealed them to him with winks and 
nods and whispers. 

“That Major Iffield! He wants to see you, Master 
Julian. Looking as black as thunder, and sitting in the 
study with a copy of The Morning Post. Old Mrs. Iffield 
was round here after lunch making mischief, I’ll be bound, 
the old creature! Your Ma is looking that worried!” 

Julian felt himself getting pale, and his heart gave a 
thump. So all the fat was in the fire! Well, he had ex¬ 
pected it. 

“How long has Major Iffield been here?” he asked, trying 
to steady his voice, and failing. 

Old Mary said half an hour, and whispered something 
about the folly of old men who married young wives. 
“Asking for it in my humble opinion,” said old Mary. 
Julian told her to hold her tongue, and strode away to 
the study and opened the door. Major Iffield sat in the big 
chair by the window. The Morning Post had dropped to 
the floor by his side and he was smoking a cigar and star¬ 
ing into the garden. He rose when Julian came into the 
room, and said “Hullo, Perryam!” and held out his hand 
in his usual friendly way. 

Julian shook hands with him, not without a sense of 
embarrassment and something like shame. He wished the 
Major had not held out his hand. 

“Sorry to invade your house like this,” said the Major. 
“Not at all,” said Julian. “Sit down, won’t you?” 

The Major sat down, and Julian took a seat on the high 
fender and lit a cigarette. It was plain that Major Iffield 
was ill at ease, and even distressed. He cleared his throat 
huskily and Julian noticed that the cigar which he held in 
his left hand trembled. 


199 


200 Heirs Apparent 

“I’m on an absurd errand,” he said, with an uneasy laugh. 
“It's about what happened last night.” 

He glanced over at Julian and then looked away while 
a little colour was creeping up his neck to his tanned face. 

“Don’t think I’m going to get angry or anything,” he 
continued. “I shouldn’t have come here at all unless my 
mother had been to see Mrs. Perryam.” 

“What about?” asked Julian, coldly. 

Major Iffield laughed again uneasily. 

“I daresay you can guess.” 

He rose from his chair and dropped his cigar in a flower 
pot on the window sill, and faced Julian squarely. 

“We had better talk straight,” he said. “The fact is, 
Perryam, that although I’m tolerant and easy-going and all 
that, I don’t like young fellows to kiss my wife and indulge 
in amorous adventures at my expense. See what I mean?” 

“Yes,” said Julian. “There’s your point of view of 
course.” 

He spoke with an air of cold and judicial calm, not re¬ 
vealing the emotion which seemed to beat like a little drum 
in his left ear. 

“Exactly,” said Major Iffleld. “My point of view has to 
be considered. My honour, to put it bluntly, though I 
don’t want to talk heroics.” 

He clasped and unclasped his big golf-playing hands be¬ 
hind his back. 

“Leaving honour on one side for a moment—it’s a ques¬ 
tion of happiness, really. For you and Evelyn as well as 
myself. If this kind of thing goes too far it leads to— 
unhappiness—all round. . . . See what I mean?” 

Julian saw exactly what he meant. But what could he 
answer this man, this strong, good-natured, easy-going man 
who was talking so quietly, so dispassionately, in such a 
friendly, argue-it-out sort of way? If he had tried to do 
a little head bashing it would have been easier. 

“Of course,” said Major Iffield, “it’s always a mistake— 
almost a crime sometimes—for a fellow of my age to 
marry a young girl. I mean it’s so jolly rough on the girl. 
Especially when she’s like Evelyn—as playful as a kitten 


Heirs Apparent 201 

and all that, and keen on having all the fun of the fair. 
She belongs to the younger generation in that way. Rest¬ 
less, you know. Without fixed principles. With a different 
code from old fogeys like me. Doesn’t believe much in duty 
and so forth, and is rather wilful and out for a game at 
any price. At any risk! That makes it difficult. Don’t 
you agree?” 

“Very difficult,” said Julian, wishing to Heaven the 
ground would open up and swallow him. 

“I can see Evelyn’s point of view all right,” continued the 
Major. “I’m a devilish dull person—and then of course 
there’s my mother. That doesn’t make it easier.” 

He sighed heavily, and then laughed a little. 

“The old story of the mother-in-law, eh ? I remember Dan 
Leno— However! There it is. My mother and Eve don’t 
hit it off together, but I can’t turn the old lady out of doors 
at this time of day. It would break her heart, and after 
all, she brought me into the world, and made me every¬ 
thing I am. A man owes a duty to his mother. First 
perhaps, though God knows. They say a man when he’s 
dying thinks of his mother and forgets his wife. Queer 
that!” 

Julian uncrossed his legs as he sat on the high fender, 
stood up, and spoke in a harsh rasping voice. 

“What’s all this got to do with it, sir?” he asked, with 
a nervous impatience he tried to restrain. 

Major Iffield had another little wave of colour up the 
back of his neck. 

“I’m showing you the problem,” he said. “My difficulties 
and Evelyn’s. I don’t want you to think I’m a sort of 
domestic tyrant—an old ogre of a husband keeping his little 
wife in a stranglehold, not giving her any rope, and all 
that. God knows I’ve given Evelyn lots of rope. Almost 
too much. I mean I haven’t raised Cain because she has 
lots of friends that I don’t particularly approve of. Young 
fellows hanging around, making sheep’s eyes, indulging in 
flirtation, more or less harmless. If it amuses her, I don’t 
object. I haven’t objected!” 

“Well then—?” asked Julian. 


202 Heirs Apparent 

“Well,” said Major Iffield, slowly, “I have to draw, the 
line somewhere. I draw it at what happened last night, 
Perryam. From what my mother tells me it went a little 
too far. See what I mean?” 

“Not altogether,” said Julian, bluffing a little, though he 
knew he held a weak hand. 

“I’m not blaming you,” said the Major. “You’re very 
young, if I may say so. I envy you for that, by Jove! At 
your age one doesn’t reckon up consequences. One just 
goes ahead until the cropper comes. That’s natural. I 
was like it myself—a thousand years ago. But I want to 
save you from becoming a cropper. That’s why I’m here. 
The point is, young fellow, I want you to promise me that 
you won’t see Evelyn again for some time. It’s not good 
for you. She’s my wife, you see, and if you’ll take my 
advice you’ll keep away and get on with your job in life, 
whatever it may be. See what I mean?” 

Julian went over to the mantelpiece and shifted one of 
the vases and then turned and faced Major Iffield and 
spoke more emotionally than he wanted. 

“Look here, Major, I’m damned sorry for all your worry, 
and I agree with everything you’ve said except one thing. 
I can’t promise not to see Evelyn again. If she doesn’t 
want to see me that’s another thing, but if she beckons 
with her little finger I shall go to her, wherever it is. It’s 
only fair to tell you that. I should be a liar if I didn’t.” 

Major Iffield stared at him, and breathed rather heavily. 

“You mean to say you don’t care anything for my hap¬ 
piness? Nothing for your own self-respect, and your 
father’s good name?” 

“Quite a lot,” said Julian. “As it happens I’ve decided 
to clear out of this neighbourhood, for a time anyhow. 
But if Evelyn sends for me, I shall come. Or if she comes 
to me I shall wipe out all the rest. Don’t you understand, 
sir? I’d walk on my hands and knees to her. She means 
everything there is. I can’t help myself.” 

His voice broke a little, and he turned away. 

Major Iffield’s eyes seemed to soften towards him. 


Heirs Apparent 203 

“It was too bad of Evelyn!” he said. “You’re too young 
to play about with. She ought to have known.” 

He raised his hands a little with a gesture of dismay. 

“If only you young people wouldn’t play with fire! 
You’re so frightfully reckless, all of you.” 

He put his hand on Julian’s shoulder. 

“Look here, young un. Pull yourself together. I hate 
to say it, but Evelyn was only amusing herself with you. 
Killing boredom. She doesn’t care a damn for you really.” 

“It’s.a lie!” said Julian, fiercely. He felt savage because 
this man was saying bluntly what was his own most hideous 
thought. 

“It’s the truth,” said Major Iffield. “One day you’ll 
find out. She’s a careless little woman, I’m afraid.” 

He patted Julian’s shoulder. 

“Now look here! That promise? You won’t try and 
see her again? Say for six months or so? For your own 
sake ?” 

“I make no such promise,” said Julian. 

Major Iffield’s mouth hardened and his grip tightened on 
Julian’s shoulder. 

“Well, in that case—don’t let me find you in my house 
again. I’m getting old, but I’ve a strong right arm. See 
what I mean?” 

He waited for an answer, and not getting one, picked up 
his hat and stick from the window sill and went towards 
the door. Before he left the room he turned and spoke 
again, this time in his old friendly way. 

“I’m sorry about all this. Forget it, old boy. There 
are better things to do in life, for young fellows like you. 
Play the bigger game! It’s worth it.” 

He left the room, and Julian, alone in the study, with his 
arms on the mantelpiece, heard Major Iffield’s heavy boots 
scrunching down the gravel path. 


XXIV 


H E had a series of conversations that evening which 
put a tremendous strain on his nervous system, as 
he found when he flung himself onto his bed and felt 
utterly exhausted in mind and body. 

Janet had made big eyes at him at dinner and winked 
once or twice in a knowing, sympathetic way which gave 
him no comfort. His mother, whom he had avoided since 
Major Ifiield’s visit by going up to his room and locking 
the door before changing for dinner, glanced at him once 
or twice in an anxious way and tried to cover up his deep 
unbroken silence by a bright conversation full of local gos¬ 
sip. His grandfather put both feet into the trough, as it 
were, by referring to Major Iffield’s visit, wondering what 
the fellow wanted, and announcing that young Mrs. Iffleld 
had rather taken his fancy at the garden party and seemed 
to have more sense than most young women of her age. 
Janet, with great tact, switched him off from this line of 
thought by asking his opinion of Lloyd George, and get¬ 
ting his considered judgment, lasting from the fish to 
dessert, that the man had sold his soul for office, was un¬ 
doubtedly in league with the Russian Bolsheviks, and was 
probably receiving money from the Germans in return for 
letting them off their debts. Janet countered these libellous 
statements by the bold assertion that Lloyd George was the 
greatest and noblest little man in the world and that if 
people had only followed his advice the world wouldn’t be 
in such a jolly old mess. By this means she engineered a 
pretty little quarrel with the old gentleman which she main¬ 
tained in a sprightly and aggressive way, as an aid of sis¬ 
terly comradeship. Julian’s father, who looked rather tired 
and harassed, nearly spoilt this encounter by observing that 
Janet had expressed precisely the opposite opinion only a 
fortnight before, when he had upheld Lloyd George’s atti¬ 
tude regarding France and German reparations. When she 

204 


Heirs Apparent 205 

slapped his hand and said, “Don’t you interfere, Dad! This 
is a private scrap between me and Grandfather,” he asked 
her not to goad the old man too much, as it wasn’t good 
for his health. 

“Anyhow,” he said, “let’s choose a brighter topic of con¬ 
versation. Julian looks very gloomy this evening. He 
hasn’t uttered a word the whole meal. What’s the matter, 
old boy?” 

It was obvious that Mrs. Perryam had not yet confided 
the story of Evelyn to her husband, as doubtless she had 
received it with sinister suggestions from the elder Mrs. 
Iffield, and passed it on to Janet. Mr. Perryam was plainly 
ignorant of the bombshell that had burst in his household. 

“A game of pills, old boy?” Janet had suggested after 
dinner, and Julian had nodded. 

They had not had a real “powwow” as they called it 
since that night at the Jazz club. Julian’s intention to act 
the moral censor to this pretty sister of his had faded out 
in view of his own adventure of soul after the journey 
home with Evelyn and what had happened afterwards. He 
had been afraid of Janet’s sharp tongue and her admirable 
chance of tn quoque. 

This evening she had rather shocked him by her amazing 
intuitions and almost cynical amusement regarding his pain¬ 
ful situation. Standing with her back to the billiard room 
door, she had announced her knowledge of the whole affair 
long before “old mother Iffield” had come round with her 
tale of woe. She had long suspected that Julian was carry¬ 
ing on in a rather hectic way with Evelyn. Did he think 
she had no eyes in her head, or no ears for the little whis¬ 
perings of her intimate friends? Why, he had given him¬ 
self away completely by his absent-mindedness, his look of 
love’s young dream—as early as breakfast time!—his mor¬ 
bid silences, his disappearances. He had been seen with 
Evelyn on Box Hill. By whom? Oh, well, never mind! 
He had been observed hand in hand with the lady between 
Westcott and Dorking. Spies? Did he imagine in his 
simple innocence that a young man of his appearance could 
walk out with a girl like Evelyn without attracting the 


206 Heirs Apparent 

attention of the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, 
to say nothing of nurse-maids, servant girls, old ladies in 
bath chairs, old ladies in open carriages, old ladies lying in 
watch behind their window blinds in wayside bungalows ? 

“You might have played the game more carefully, old 
boy!” was Janet’s leading reproach. 

She had no sense of disapproval from a moral point of 
view, it seemed. Julian noticed that, with a secret surprise 
and uneasiness. She seemed to think it was rather comical 
that he should have fallen in love with a married girl. 
Only she asked him to “go easy” with Evelyn, because that 
young lady, in her opinion, was likely to let him down with¬ 
out a moment’s consideration. She was one of those girls 
who had no compunction, and was just out for a good time 
from any man who would give it them. 

“Not altogether nice,” said Janet. “Not true to our kind 
of code.” 

Julian had demanded what kind of code she referred to. 
As far as he could make out she didn’t seem to possess a 
code. Anyhow he was afraid the code didn’t work when 
it happened to get a jolt. 

“Good gracious, yes!” said Janet. “I believe in loyalty. 
If you love a man you’ve got to play the game by him. 
And if you don’t love him, it isn’t fair to play about. 
That’s how I work it out.” 

Julian had been angry with her and accused her of know¬ 
ing far too much for her age, and thinking of things which 
ought not to be in her head at all—at nineteen years of 
age! 

“My dear Julian,” said Janet calmly, “a girl of my age 
is years older than a boy of yours. We’re born with the 
inherited knowledge of aeons of womanhood—full of self- 
protective instincts, primaeval wiles, and evolutionary wis¬ 
dom. Besides, one reads, one learns a little even from 
H. G. Wells and the daily papers.” 

“Damn it!” said Julian. “I don’t know what we’re all 
coming to!” 

He suddenly had a sense of fear about her and grabbed 
hold of her arm. 


Heirs Apparent 207 

“Look here, Jenny, don’t you go and do silly things. 
You’re frightfully pretty, you know, and men are awful 
swine. I’m on the edge of a precipice myself, but if you 
fell in it would kill the mater and the poor old gover¬ 
nor.” 

“You’re getting morbid,” said Janet, laughing at him. 
“I’m quite able to take care of myself, thanks very much.” 

“What about Cyril?” asked Julian. “Do you really care 
for the brute?” 

“As much as you care for Evelyn, and a bit more,” she 
told him. “And if you don’t make friends with him you 
shan’t be friends with me. So there!” 

“Well, I’ll have a shot at it for your sake,” he said, and 
gave her a kiss on the cheek, which was not a habit of his 
with his sister. “All the same, I have my doubts of him. 
He wants watching.” 

“He’s all right,” said Janet. “One of the best!” 

Well, that was his talk with Janet, not leading anywhere, 
and disturbing. It was interrupted by his mother, who 
came in and sent Janet away on some pretext or other, and 
then came and put her hands on Julian’s shoulders and 
looked into his eyes with a queer, comical, jealous, anxious 
smile, and said, “Oh, my dear! Now what have you been 
doing ?” 

Julian felt something break in him, and put his head 
down on her shoulder, and but for the pride in him would 
have cried like a small boy. As it was there was a mois¬ 
ture in his eyes when he raised his head again and gave 
a little laugh, and said, “It’s a silly sort of business alto¬ 
gether !” 

“That little creature!” said Mrs. Perryam angrily, scorn¬ 
fully, and with real passion. “That horrid little cat!” 

Julian knew her meaning. It was an attack on Evelyn. 
He could not stand for that. 

“Now look here, mother, none of that! It wasn’t her 
fault in the very least. I just lost my head about her. She 
didn’t ask me to!” 

“Oh, no,” said Mrs. Perryam, “of course not! It’s never 
the woman who plays the hussy!” 


208 Heirs Apparent 

She spoke with extreme sarcasm, and added outrageous 
words. 

“I’d like to wallop her!” 

Julian smiled at that. There was something ludicrous 
about his mother’s passionate desire for a walloping venge¬ 
ance. It seemed to reduce all argument to absurdity. 

“Besides,” he said, getting serious again, “what’s all the 
fuss about? I made a fool of myself last night—I suppose 
the old witch told you all about it?—but I don’t see that 
it’s anybody’s business but mine.” 

“I expect Major Iffield had something to say about it!” 
said Mrs. Perryam. 

Julian coloured up. 

“He said some rather obvious things, and took a long time 
saying them. He wants me never to see Evelyn again, or 
at least a six months’ prohibition, and all that sort of tosh. 
Wanted me to promise. Needless to say I refused. I don’t 
see why one should break up a friendship.” 

He was arguing against his own judgment, his own con¬ 
fession of the fraud in that word “friendship.” It was as 
though one half of his brain spoke against the other half, 
instinct against intelligence, desire against conscience. 

Mrs. Perryam was silent for a little while, sitting on the 
edge of the billiard table in her evening frock, looking, as 
Julian always thought she looked, amazingly beautiful and 
young. 

“It’s funny you should say that,” she said presently, with 
a sort of hidden meaning. 

“Why?” asked Julian. “It’s reasonable, isn’t it?” 

“I said the same thing myself only yesterday. Just those 
words. ‘I don’t see why one should break up a friend¬ 
ship !’ ” 

“I don’t follow,” said Julian. 

He “followed” when his mother spoke rather breath¬ 
lessly, with a deep flush on her face. It was about Lord 
Cornford. She had got rather “pally” with him, lately. 
It was amusing to be waited on hand and foot by a real 
aristocrat—Norman Conquest and all that!—who had been 
friendly with Duchesses and a Royal favourite. Grand 


Heirs Apparent 209 

manners, of the old school! Very gallant and charming, 
and kind, and thoughtful. Rather fun to be seen about 
with him in his carriage and pair, or open Daimler. Made 
her feel no end stuck up with herself, and saved her from 
boredom. It was a bit boring with Daddy away all day, 
and Janet always up to mischief somewhere, and Julian 
as unsociable as a bear with a sore ear, and Grandfather 
querulous about everything. There was nothing wrong in 
liking to hear old Cornford’s anecdotes of high life in India. 
Funny little forgotten scandals. She had been angry with 
Daddy for being jealous and absurd. She had said, “I 
don’t see why one should break up a friendship!” 

"I quite agree,” said Julian. “Those stuffy old ideas!” 

His mother looked at him under half veiled eyes. 

“All the same, Julian, I’m going to break it, my dear. 
I’ve written to the old boy to-night to say, ‘Mrs. Perryam 
much regrets,’ etc.” 

“Why?” asked Julian. “In Heaven’s name, why?” 

“It’s safer,” said his mother. “In this life, laddy, one 
has to play for safety. One never knows—until one’s dead. 
Things leap up in one. Even at my age! Pits open before 
one’s feet. In one goes, plop! before you can say Jack 
Robinson. And then there’s the devil to pay!” 

She stood up from the billiard table and clasped her son’s 
arm. 

“Julian, it’s nothing for me to give old Cornford the 
go-by. No more than dismissing one’s butler—though he 
was a bit of fun! It’s going to be hard for you to give 
up that Evelyn girl. Frightfully hard. I know that, my 
dear! But I want you to do it before there’s the devil 
to pay.” 

“Damn the devil!” said Julian, unconscious of the strict 
orthodoxy of this passionate sentiment. 

He refused to make any promise to give up Evelyn, 
unless she gave him up. But he agreed that he must go 
away. He couldn’t hang about the neighbourhood, with 
nothing to do but mope. He wasn’t as weak as all that. 
He would have to get a job. 

“What sort of job?” asked his mother, doubtfully. 


210 Heirs Apparent 

Julian shrugged his shoulders and laughed. 

“A surrender to the gutter press! I suppose the gov¬ 
ernor can fix me up on The Week?” 

Mrs. Perryam did not look quite happy. 

“It’s a horrible career, Julian. So uncertain, and nerve- 
wearing. Look at poor old Daddy! Always slaving, and 

dependent on a man he hates. I wanted you to do some¬ 

thing better than that. The jolly old Bar, or something 
good in the City, with regular hours and a certain salary.” 

“I want to write one day,” said Julian. “I may as well 
do my apprenticeship. Of course I shall hate it like Hell.” 

“Well, let’s see what Daddy thinks of it.” 

Julian asked in a shamefaced way if he knew about 
Evelyn. 

His mother nodded. 

“Yes, I told him. It was only fair. He’s fearfully wor¬ 
ried of course. But he won’t say a word about it. You 

know how shy he is of that kind of thing!” 

So there had been a conversation with his father—very 
characteristic of both of them, as Julian was aware, self¬ 
consciously. Not a word was said about Evelyn, or the 
elder Mrs. Iffield’s visit, or Major Iffield’s ultimatum. All 
that was carefully avoided, though Julian saw that his 
father was deeply distressed and alarmed. 

Julian had plunged straight into the proposal of getting 
a job on The Week. 

“That cuckoo gets on my nerves,” he said. “Impossible 
to write with that damn bird in the neighbourhood. Be¬ 
sides I want to see a bit of London, and I’ve an idea of 
sharing digs with one of the Oxford crowd. Prichard, 
probably. I may as well play around Fleet Street a bit.” 

“You’ll have to work,” said Mr. Perryam. “The Old 
Man won’t tolerate hangers-on, not even if he’s my son.” 

“That’s all right,” said Julian, carelessly. “Facilis 

descensus Averni, and all that.” 

Mr. Perryam’s face flushed a little. 

“You’re rather arrogant, old lad! Perhaps it will do you 
a bit of good to be under a news editor who has no rev¬ 
erence for intellectual snobbishness.” 


211 


Heirs Apparent 

It was a rather severe rebuke and his father seemed to 
regret having spoken it, as soon as the words had left his 
lips. 

“Not that I don’t agree with you, old boy. Of course 
journalism is not an exalted game these days, unless one’s 
a professional idealist on papers that don’t pay. One has 
to pander to the mob mind, and write for the average intel¬ 
ligence which is pretty low. I admit all that! I would 
rather you adopted any other profession in the world.” 

In spite of his anxiety to see Julian get to work he pointed 
out the drawbacks of journalistic life with a bitter note of 
irony—its insecurity, its futility, its slavery, its dishonesty. 

“It’s not so bad in the lower ranks,” he said. “The 
reporter has to get his facts right. The sub-editor handles 
the stuff that comes in and gets order out of chaos. They’re 
not asked to be dishonest. It’s only when one directs thje 
policy that one has to shape one’s ideals to the whims of 
interests of the proprietor or group of proprietors, with 
their political wire-pulling, or financial adventures. I’ve 
been the victim of that. I’m the victim of it now. That 
old ruffian Buckland—the humiliations I have to suffer from 
him! The muck I have to print to bolster up his schemes 
or pander to his beastly type of mind! Sometimes, Julian, 
I can hardly endure it. And then I think of your mother, 
and all of you, and I swallow my pride, and pocket my 
ideals. I can’t afford to give up three thousand a year, to 
pace the pavements again. All life is a compromise, as I 
told you once before.” 

He was silent, and looked at Julian with troubled eyes. 

“I always hoped you would develop some talent for a 
different kind of career. Engineering—medicine—law— 
teaching. Something practical and useful. This writing 
game—journalism—O Lord!” 

“Better than playing around in a Surrey garden,” said 
Julian. 

It was strange how the position seemed to be reversed— 
almost ludicrous! 

A few weeks ago he had vowed that nothing would 
induce him to be a journalist and had accused his father of 


212 Heirs Apparent 

being a “bought man.” Now, when he asked for a job, 
his father seemed to shrink from it, as though afraid to let 
him see the secrets in a Chamber of Horrors. He drew 
his father’s attention to the paradox, and Mr. Perryam 
laughed uneasily. 

“Well,” he said, “it will give you experience. If you’re 
able to stick it out, old boy, it won’t hurt you to have a 
look at life, from the newspaper angle. I’ll give you a note 
to the Old Man. He’ll be glad to tell you his ideas about 
things, and he likes to be consulted. The old ruffian!” 

When he said good night, he suddenly put his arm round 
his son’s shoulder and kissed his cheek. He had not done 
that since Julian had left Winchester, and it was as though 
he was conscious that they had come to the parting of the 
ways, and that his boy whom he had shielded from all bru¬ 
talities and evil knowledge was about to leave boyhood 
behind, and face the grim realities of men, and be tested 
in the furnace of life. 


XXV 


MESSAGE arranging an appointment with Victor 



JL \ Buckland was brought by Cyril, who was extremely 
cynical on the subject of his father. 

“The Old Man wants to see you to-morrow morning. If 
he gives you a job, which is certain, considering your gov¬ 
ernor’s position, I don’t mind telling you your young soul 
will be sullied before you draw your first month’s salary. 
It’s a dirty game—though very profitable. The Old Man 
has risen to fame and fortune by pandering to the worst 
instincts of half-baked humanity; slightly disguised by re¬ 
ligious sentiment, the quest of Truth, and the patriotism of 
the pub parlour. A wonderful combination conducted with 
real genius, and unfailing as a money maker.” 

“It will give me a bit of experience,” said Julian, care¬ 
lessly. 

“It certainly will!” said Cyril. “Personally I’ve no use 
for it. It’s too squalid for my sensitive soul. I’m content 
to let the Old Man corrupt public opinion—with your 
father’s able assistance—while I spend as much of his ill- 
gotten gold as I can persuade him to part with. And I 
must say he doesn’t jib very often at my somewhat expen¬ 
sive way of life.” 

The appointment was fixed for ten o’clock the following 
morning at Hindhead. Julian motored over from Gorse 
Hill and arrived at Pyxham Park at a quarter to ten, driv¬ 
ing through the great iron gates surmounted by the lion 
couchant of the Burtons who had dwelt here for four cen¬ 
turies until the year after the war when they entered the 
ranks of the New Poor and sold their house and land to 
this newspaper proprietor. 

It was a handsome place which made Julian’s home at 
Gorse Hill look like a suburban villa. The house itself, 
rebuilt in Georgian times on the site of a Tudor mansion, 


213 


214 Heirs Apparent 

was imposing rather than beautiful, in white stone with a 
pillared facade, but the park, with its formal Italian gar¬ 
dens beyond the paddocks and pasture land was enchanting. 
An avenue of tall beeches led towards the house, and be¬ 
yond were lawns banked round with rhododendrons now, 
on this June morning, afire with scarlet and purple 
flowers. To the right of the house the ground was ter¬ 
raced and flanked by a stone balustrade with sculptured 
figures of Greek goddesses decorously draped to suit the 
sentiment of Eighteenth Century England with its classical 
interests but respectable traditions. Bathing pools and lily 
ponds, and an ornamental fountain, were below the terraces, 
and beyond there were fruit gardens with a high wall for 
peaches. Through the line of beeches as he drove up Julian 
saw Alderney cattle in fields of buttercups, and on the other 
side of the avenue was a herd of fallow deer. It was a 
comforting sight to a young man about to enter the field 
of literature. Certainly it was not without a rich harvest, 
for those who had talent—and a little luck, no doubt. 

Julian left his car in the drive, and walked up the steps 
of the great house, not without trepidation. He had not 
been favourably impressed with Victor Buckland’s manner 
at the garden party, and his father had always spoken of 
him with a mixture of contempt, hatred, and a little fear. 
But upon this interview with him depended a great deal. 
It would decide Julian’s future life, for good or evil. Mo¬ 
mentarily Julian was seized with apprehension. Wasn’t it 
rather foolhardy of him to ask for this job? He was 
utterly unsuited for journalistic life. He would hate it like 
poison, and anyhow it would be fatiguing after the leisured 
life of Oxford and the thoughtful idleness of Gorse Hill. 
He would be plunged into the vortex if old Buckland gave 
him the password. Even his father’s influence could not 
shield him from its squalor, and the company of half-baked 
people who dressed in the wrong way and took liberties 
with the King’s English. . . . However, it would get him 
to London and out of the dangerous neighbourhood of 
Evelyn. He would have to face it. 

He faced a young footman in the front hall who was 


Heirs Apparent 215 

reading a copy of The Morning Post before a wood fire. 

“Well, what is it?” asked this young man, with a touch 
of arrogance. 

“I have an appointment with Mr. Victor Buckland,” said 
Julian even more haughtily. 

The footman seemed to doubt it. 

“In writing?” he asked. 

“More or less,” said Julian. “I'm Mr. Perryam’s son.” 

The footman became civil. 

“Quite right, sir. I thought you might be a reporter 
fellow. They come down here sometimes asking for jobs. 
Mr. Buckland has instructed me to hoof them out.” 

Julian did not reply to this piece of information. He 
reflected rather painfully that he was also asking for a job 
like one of those “reporter fellows.” 

The young man condescended to take his card, and re¬ 
turned almost immediately with further information, de¬ 
livered this time in a friendly way. 

“Mr. Buckland will see you in half an hour, sir. He's 
dictating to his lady secretaries while he has breakfast in 
the morning room. . . . We're fairly rushed with that Vic¬ 
tory Bond scheme.” 

“What's that?” asked Julian. 

The footman raised his eyebrows, and looked both aston¬ 
ished and shocked. 

“Don’t you read The Week, sir? We're offering Victory 
Bonds on the easy payment system, coupled with Life In¬ 
surance, and prizes to be drawn once a year. Great! One 
of Mr. Buckland’s strokes of genius. We’re fairly inun¬ 
dated with correspondence, and it’s raised our circulation 
half a million already.” 

He showed Julian into the drawing-room, pulled back the 
window curtains a little, handed him The Morning Post, 
and left the room. 

Julian ignored the paper and gazed round the room with 
its gilt furniture of the Empire period—rather too ornate— 
and its portraits of various generations of Burtons from 
the Stuart period onwards. It seemed rather a pity that 
the family had had to abandon these portraits of their 


216 Heirs Apparent 

ancestors, especially a cavalier by Van Dyck—“Sir Charles 
Burton, Kt., Master of His Majesty’s Horse, 1648.” And 
as though to emphasise the change of ownership there was 
a full length portrait of Victor Buckland in a frock coat 
with an orchid in his buttonhole, and that “strong, silent” 
look which appeared week by week with the photograph 
(inset) in his latest powerful article. Julian read the in¬ 
scription, which was interesting. 

“Presented by the Staff of The Week 
in recognition of the splendid patriotism, 
the noble generosity, and the unfailing 
genius of 

The Right Honourable Victor Buckland, M.P.” 

Julian had only just read this inscription when the draw¬ 
ing-room door burst open and a pretty girl with bobbed 
hair, dressed in a blue frock, darted in, flung herself on the 
sofa, buried her face in a chintz-covered cushion, and 
sobbed passionately. 

It is needless to say that Julian felt profoundly embar¬ 
rassed. Quite obviously the girl had not seen him standing 
under the portrait of Victor Buckland and had fled to the 
drawing-room believing that it was uninhabited. 

Julian stared at her, coughed, and shifted his feet on the 
polished boards. 

The girl raised her head from the cushion with a jerk, 
sat up straight, and then howled into a very small hand¬ 
kerchief which was already wet. 

“Sorry!” said Julian. “What’s happened?” 

The girl jumped up and spoke passionately, choking down 
her sobs. 

“I won’t stand it any longer!” 

“What?” asked Julian. 

“To be sworn at by a wicked old man like that! All be¬ 
cause I corrected him on a point of grammar!” 

“What, ‘him’?” asked Julian, for the sake of simplicity. 

“The Old Man! Mr. Buckland. And I don’t care who 
you are or if you go and tell him what I say.” 

“I won’t tell,” said Julian. “What’s he been doing?” 


Heirs Apparent 217 

“He's a nasty old man, and his language isn’t fit for any 
girl’s ears. I’ll lose his precious three pounds ten a week 
rather than suffer under him a day longer. The way he 
goes for poor Miss Dove is perfectly scandalous!” 

“Who’s Miss Dove?” asked Julian. 

The girl seemed surprised at his ignorance. 

“His secretary, of course.” 

“Oh, I see. Who are you then?” 

“I’m Miss Hamilton. Joan Hamilton. Junior typist. 
Miss Dove does all the brain work, and gets most of his 
bad temper! It’s disgusting! . . . Well, I’m going.” 

She wiped her eyes again and then looked at Julian rather 
shyly now that her emotion had cooled down. 

“Of course I ought not to talk like this before a stranger. 
But there is a limit, isn’t there?” 

Julian agreed that in most things there was some kind 
of limit. 

“Are you on the staff of The Week?” she asked. 

“No,” said Julian, “but I expect to be, pretty soon. Any¬ 
how I’m asking for it.” 

Miss Joan Hamilton looked at him as women look at men 
who are about to go on desperate adventures with deadly 
risks. 

“Don’t!” she said. “I earnestly advise you not to. The 
Old Man is a sink of iniquity. He ought to be suppressed 
by law. It’s nothing but lies and slander and disgusting 
stuff.” 

“People seem to like it,” said Julian. 

“People!” answered Miss Joan Hamilton, with the scorn 
of Thomas Carlyle for a world of fools. 

Julian was tempted to tell her that his father was the 
editor of The Week, but further conversation was pre¬ 
vented by the return of the footman who nodded to Julian 
and said, “The Governor’s ready for you.” 

Then he turned to Miss Joan with an air of ironical 
commiseration. 

“Oh, there you are, Miss! Your number’s up, I’m 
afraid. I overheard the Governor instructing Miss Dove 
to give you the immediate sack. You’re the third in the 


218 Heirs Apparent 

past fortnight. ‘Abandon hope all ye who enter here/ as 
we used to say in the dear old trenches.” 

Miss Joan Hamilton did not encourage his somewhat 
familiar conversation, but with a haughty glance requested 
him to order a cab to fetch her in half an hour. 

Julian smiled a good-bye to her as he left the room. She 
had a lot of spirit, he thought. 

When he was shown into the morning room Victor Buck- 
land was dictating a letter to a harassed-looking lady of 
uncertain age with a pale face and mouse-coloured hair 
brushed back from a high thin forehead, who was certainly 
Miss Dove. A girl somewhat older than Miss Joan Ham¬ 
ilton was typing in a corner of the room with amazing 
rapidity. The proprietor of The Week did not take the 
slightest notice of Julian’s entry and continued his dicta¬ 
tion while Julian remained standing. His bulky body was 
deep in a big chair with one leg over its arm. On a table 
at his elbow were the relics of an English breakfast. A 
litter of papers lay on the floor by his side. His bald head 
caught the light from the window, and glistened as though 
highly greased. His big flabby face, with heavily puffed 
eyes behind American glasses, was turned towards Miss 
Dove as he dictated in a slow sonorous voice. 

“It has always been the policy of The Week to reveal 
comma without fear or favour comma any scandalous secret 
lurking behind the scenes of English life comma in order 
that public morality may be defended and the sanctity of 
the home—er—vindicated full stop. I deeply regret that 
your son should have committed suicide in a moment of 
temporary insanity comma but The Week acknowledges no 
responsibility whatever in view of the revelations which it 
made in the public interest comma and any further com¬ 
munication you may have to make should be addressed to 
our solicitors, Messrs. Patterson and Prout full stop. I am, 
dear Madam—” 

He cleared his throat huskily, dropped one more paper 
on to the litter below his chair, and said, “That’ll do, Miss 
Dove. Type those out.” 

Miss Dove retired to a little table on the other side of 


Heirs Apparent 219 

the room and typed with the same amazing rapidity as the 
other girl, so that the click of their typewriters made a noise 
like machine gun fire. 

It was then that Victor Buckland turned his attention to 
Julian, with heavy geniality. 

“Good morning, Perryam. How’s your father? Take 
a seat, won’t you?” 

Julian sat down on the nearest chair, while Victor Buck- 
land took a cigar from a case in his breast pocket, cut off 
the end with a little machine attached to his great bulk by 
a gold chain, and lit it deliberately. 

“Your father tells me you want to do something for 
The Week. What’s your idea?” 

“Well,” said Julian, carelessly, “I’m rather keen to do 
some literary work.” 

Victor Buckland smiled rather grimly. 

“High brow stuff I suppose? Sonnets, academic essays 
in the Oxford style? Reviews of books?” 

Julian acknowledged that he would prefer book review¬ 
ing to reporting. 

Victor Buckland chuckled good-naturedly. 

“I thought so! I’ve turned down scores of young fel¬ 
lows like you. So has your father, as I expect he’s told 
you. They all want to review books or write dramatic 
criticism.” 

“Well,” said Julian again, “I wouldn’t object to do a 
theatre now and then.” 

He had visions of first night tickets. He could pass some 
on to Audrey and others. 

“Exactly! I suppose you did a bit of writing for the 
Isis?” 

“Yes. I was a regular contributor. Light stuff of 
course, but I made rather a hit in a way.” 

Old Buckland chuckled. 

“The number of lives that have been wrecked by the 
Isis! That sheet ought to be suppressed. It gives fellows 
false ideas, cultivates the worst possible style, and makes 
intellectual prigs of them. I didn’t get my training on the 
Isis, thank God. Nor did your father! I got it as a re- 


220 Heirs Apparent 

porter of police court news, and sub-editor of the Half¬ 
penny Budget” 

He puffed many rings of smoke from his cigar, and 
looked at Julian. 

“Why don’t you go into business? There’s nothing like 
trade.” 

“I want to write,” said Julian. 

Victor Buckland made a queer noise in his throat. 

“There’s no money in it, unless you write the right kind 
of stuff. Even then there’s not much in it unless you get 
on to the management side, with shares in the business. 
It’s a trade, like any other. But it wants more brains, more 
push, more nerve, and more knowledge of life. That’s how 
I’ve succeeded. That’s how your father has succeeded— 
under my direction.” 

Julian resented that patronising reference to his father, 
and felt his gorge rise at this old egoist. 

“I understand Life,” said Victor Buckland, gulping down 
some cold coffee. “I’ve mastered the secrets of the Human 
Mind. I’ve analysed the Average Man and the Average 
Woman. I know ’em inside out, and their fundamental 
interests for which I cater. The old law of supply and 
demand. They demand certain things, unconsciously—I 
supply them. That’s why The Week has a circulation of 
two millions.” 

He was silent a moment, as though reflecting on the stu¬ 
pendous achievement of that two millions. 

“Has your father told you the secret?” he asked. 

“No,” said Julian. “He does not talk shop much at home. 
We don’t encourage him.” 

“Ah!” said the Old Man, glowering, “you’re like Cyril 
in that way. Isn’t interested! Just spends the money his 
father makes.” 

Julian condescended to encourage him a little. 

“I’d like to know,” he remarked. 

“Oh, you would, would you?” 

Victor Buckland seemed pleased with his interest. 

“If you take advantage of what I tell you, there’s a big 
fortune for you. ... I tell all my young men, only they 


221 


Heirs Apparent 

don't seem to profit by it. They've no guts. They weaken. 
Even your father shirks the business side of things— 
doesn’t understand the elements!—and plays the sentimen¬ 
talist when I’m not looking." 

“What’s the secret, sir?” asked Julian. 

He did not want to know very much. He had no ambi¬ 
tion to develop into such a type as this gross old man with 
his puffed eyes and big paunch and flabby flesh, even if 
success led to a house like this with its great park. But he 
wanted a job on his paper, as a means of escape from 
Gorse Hill. 

“The principles," said Victor Buckland, “are elementary. 
When I look back at my own career I’m astonished at the 
simplicity of the game, apart from any gift of organisation 
and that touch of genius which exalts the Commonplace." 

He puffed at his big cigar thoughtfully, and stared at 
Julian, and through him, as though seeing the principles of 
Success somewhere at the end of the room. 

“What are the fundamental passions, interests, and pleas¬ 
ures of the human race?" he asked sternly. 

Julian failed to give a guess. 

“The same in every country, my boy, in every class, and 
in every heart. . . . Love, Hate, Religion, the Sporting In¬ 
stinct, and Scandal—curiosity in the affairs of other people 
like themselves. . . . Take Love . . ." 

He seemed to take Love and ponder over it, as he might 
judge a horse in the paddock. He did not see the curl of 
Julian’s lip. 

“Love," he said. “People want to know about it, peer 
into its secret motives and instincts, study its abnormalities, 
its melodrama, its tremendous Urge. They want to know 
how the actress loves, how the Bishop loves, the film star, 
the murderer, the typist girl, the milliner. Well, I tell them! 
I give the divorce news in full—all the best cases. The 
Divorce Court provides the Hansard of Love; the great 
unending story of romance, tragedy, adventure, passionate 
sin, pity, revolt against the prohibitions of social custom 
and the restraints of civilised life. The divorce court news 
is the Shakespearean drama of everyday life—and some 


222 Heirs Apparent 

fools want to suppress it! When I can’t get a good divorce 
case, I send my young men out to discover private scandals, 
to interview leading psychologists on the burning question, 
to write articles on every aspect of amorous interest. ‘Do 
girls like men with grey eyes—black eyes, brown eyes?’ 
‘Do men like red-haired women, black-haired women, women 
who paint, intellectual women, stupid women, bad-tempered 
women ?’ An endless field of enquiry. Love, my dear boy, 
is the key-note of my success. See?” 

“I see!” said Julian, and for a moment he had a fright¬ 
ful vision of his love for Evelyn under the searchlight of 
The Week. 

“Then there’s Hate,” said Victor Buckland, solemnly. 

“Yes,” said Julian, “there certainly is Hate.” 

The Old Man nodded. 

“Enormously important. People must have something to 
hate, just as they must have something to love. It’s healthy 
and natural. Well, I give it to them.” 

“Good!” said Julian, with deep irony. 

“Yes,” said Victor Buckland. “Hot and strong. I en¬ 
courage Patriotism by making them hate the enemies of 
their country. I did an enormous work during the war— 
inadequately rewarded—by keeping the home fires burning 
with hatred against the Hun. Now I’m showing them the 
hostility that lurks in the American mind against Great 
Britain—its envy and greed and jealousy and traditional 
enmity. I’m working up feeling against France, which has 
been pursuing a hostile policy to this country ever since the 
signing of peace—though I still believe in hammering the 
Hun. I’m doing my best to counteract the sloppy senti¬ 
mentality of our internationalists, and all that League of 
Nations tosh. In whatever country there is some damn 
fool politician who inveighs against England I drag his 
words into the light and hit him hard. The Week, my boy, 
is the pillory of modern England, and in every number I 
nail somebody’s ear to the post and encourage the healthy 
old instinct which used to incite our forefathers to throw 
dead cats and sharp flints at traitors, heretics, thieves, pros¬ 
titutes, and evil doers of all kinds.” 


Heirs Apparent 223 

“A bit dangerous, isn’t it?” asked Julian. “I should have 
thought we had enough hate already without encourage¬ 
ment.” 

The Old Man waved his cigar and glowered angrily. 

“You think wrong. It needs encouragement. You can’t 
have Love without Hate. You can’t be healthy without 
hate. You can’t be righteous without Hate.” 

He was silent for a moment and then said, with an air 
of finality, and as a solemn profession of faith: 

“I believe in Hate.” 

Julian also believed in Hate at the moment. He hated 
this detestable old man, with a sense of loathing. 

“Then there’s Religion,” said Victor Buckland. 

He spoke solemnly and put his fat fingers together as 
though in silent prayer. 

“I’m all for it,” he asserted grimly. “Thank God I have 
religious instincts of my own. I’m conscious of having been 
Protected in this work of mine, which has not been without 
grave financial risks and certain financial dangers. . . . 
However, leaving that on one side . . . everybody’s inter¬ 
ested in Religion. That’s why I’ve been devoting a good 
deal of space lately to spiritualism, automatic writing, faith 
cures, and so forth. It’s most important as a means of cir¬ 
culation. Also, I don’t mind telling you, that I believe in 
fairies.” 

Julian was startled by that announcement. Victor Buck- 
land was the last man on earth, he thought, to have any 
faith in fairies. But for a moment or two he seemed to be 
staring at them through the rings of his cigar smoke. 

“Then there’s Sport,” said the Old Man. “That’s the 
gambling spirit instinctive in the human heart. The office- 
boy likes a ‘bob’ on the three-thirty just as much as I like 
a ‘pony.’ Why not? The country clergyman, the maiden 
aunt, the retired colonel, take an option on something in 
the market on the chance of getting big profits. A little 
flutter! Why not? It gives a spice to the monotony of 
everyday life. Everybody likes a Castle in Spain. The 
dream, the hope, the vision of sudden wealth, dropping 
from the sky, as it were, is at the basis of all fairy tales. 


224 Heirs Apparent 

Cinderella meets the Prince! Aladdin finds the magic 
lamp! Nowadays the lottery, the option, the newspaper 
competition, provides that element of Luck without which 
life is stale. The Week offers the biggest prizes, the great¬ 
est competitions, the finest sporting tips, and the most 
startling financial news. I stimulate the sporting spirit of 
our fine old English character. As a Patriot Pm the patron 
of all Sport from horse-racing to ping-pong.” 

Julian studied the figure of the great sportsman. He did 
not look as if he had ever played a game in his life. His 
heavy body and hunched shoulders had an unhealthy look. 

“Finally there’s Scandal.” 

The Old Man smiled for the first time in his monologue. 

“Some people don’t like the word,” he said. “Well, call 
it curiosity about Life—the Quest of Truth. That’s what it 
means. Why was Lord Blank seen at Brighton last Satur¬ 
day with the beautiful Miss X of the Winter Garden? 
Why does the Right Honourable So-and-So, one of His 
Majesty’s Privy Councillors, pay five pounds a week to a 
little dressmaker in the Fulham Road? Why, indeed? 
We’d like to know! If there’s any evil in it, let’s drag it 
out. Let’s hunt out the hypocrite. Let’s expose the shams 
and humbugs of the world. Also let us interest our readers ! 
My dear Perryam, critics occasionally say hard things about 
The Week. Highbrow papers with infinitesimal circula¬ 
tions, subsidised by cranks, accuse us of pandering to what 
is base in English character. On the contrary! We’re on 
the side of the angels. We take our stand on Morality, 
Religion, Patriotism, Love and Truth.” 

He spoke those words with a kind of solemn reverence. 
It was obvious that he was moved by the thought of his 
noble mission in life. Julian had an irresistible desire to 
laugh aloud, but he controlled himself by an effort of will 
power. He could not accuse the Old Man of complete 
hypocrisy. It was probable that he really believed that he 
was serving a divine purpose in his weekly newspaper, just 
as Napoleon and other great scoundrels deluded themselves 
into the belief that they were inspired and protected by 
God’s Will. Perhaps also there was some sound basis for 


Heirs Apparent 225 

his claim to provide the great public with the knowledge 
they most wanted. The Week, with all its faults, was a 
mirror of English life not better and not worse than the 
average morality, the general intelligence of the great crowd. 
The fellows who wrote for it must have an extraordinary 
knowledge of all that drama of life—squalid and vile per¬ 
haps but amusing and dynamic and real—from which 
Julian had always been sheltered. If he aspired to litera¬ 
ture, he must get a look at life. With his father as Editor 
—poor old Dad!—he could do pretty much as he liked, and 
anyhow chuck it if he hated it too much. 

“Is there any small job I could do for you,” he asked, “as 
one of your junior truth-tellers?” 

Victor Buckland did not seem to notice his slight touch 
of irony. 

“On principle,” he answered, “I object to an Editor 
bringing in his sons. It’s not good for the discipline of the 
office. And your father is weak enough already. Hates to 
sack a man! He’s timid of his own staff! Too damned 
good-natured!” 

He stared at Julian as though measuring him up. 

“You might be useful on our West End staff. I daresay 
Burton—that’s the news editor—could do with a well 
dressed young fellow like you to go round the town and 
help with the social gossip. Payment on results, and a 
month’s trial. I’ll tell your father.” 

“Many thanks,” said Julian. 

The Old Man called out to Miss Dove who was still 
typing furiously at the end of the long room. 

“Take down this note.” 

It was a note to Horace Burton instructing him to give 
Mr. Julian Perryam a month’s trial as a writer of social 
notes and general reporter. 

There was a postscript which Julian did not understand, 
and* it gave him a vague sense of alarm. 

“Put him onto the dope stunt.” 

Victor Buckland rose from his chair, flung the stump of 
his cigar into the fire, and held out his big flabby hand to 
Julian. 


226 Heirs Apparent 

“Well, there you are. . . . For your father’s sake! Start 
in on Monday. And remember what I told you. ... I don’t 
suppose you’ll make a journalist. You’re too supercilious. 
. . . You’ll have to get rid of that Oxford manner.” 

Julian left the room, nodded to the young footman in the 
hall, and motored home with the result of his interview. 
He was not elated, but secretly a little excited. It was his 
start in life. It was also, alas, a self-imposed exile from 
the neighbourhood of Evelyn Iffield. To his father that 
night he expressed his loathing of old Buckland. 

“He ought to be put in a lethal chamber,” he said. “How 
you’ve managed to work for him all this time is past im¬ 
agination.” 

Mr. Perryam agreed, with some qualification. 

“You can’t tell me anything about that, Julian! . . . But 
he’s generous to those who serve him. And the queer thing 
is that underneath all his blackguardism there’s a strain of 
sentiment.” 

“He’s a horror!” said Julian. 

“Well, you won’t see much of him. I have to put up 
with that. It’s my Cross, old man.” He sighed deeply, but 
then cheered up and said, “Well, I can keep an eye on you. 
That’s a comfort. I won’t let that fellow Burton grind you 
too hard. He’s a tough customer.” 


XXVI 


LETTER from Stokes Prichard who, next to Clat- 



jLx. worthy, had been Julian’s best friend at Oxford—in 
spite of frequent quarrels—solved the difficulty of finding 
rooms in London. Prichard, like Clatworthy, Burnaby and 
others, had come down from Oxford, with or without a 
degree—Prichard had just scraped through to his B.A.— 
after a glorious summer term only spoilt by Eights Week 
and the usual invasion of college quads, the Clarendon, and 
the Randolph, by fathers, mothers, uncles, aunts, and other 
elderly people who drew doleful comparisons with the past, 
regretted the decadence of modern youth, and wondered 
whether it had been really worth while sending their sons to 
Oxford. Prichard was to be articled to a solicitor— 
“Pegasus in harness, old boy!”—and as the son of north 
country parents had taken lodgings in London, in the neigh¬ 
bourhood of the Savoy Hotel, where he hoped to sample 
the cocktails occasionally. That is to say, in York Street, 
Adelphi. His mother, dear soul, was anxious about him. 
She hated the idea of his being alone in London, as an 
innocent prey to all its ravening wolves. She would feel 
comforted if he shared rooms with a nice serious young 
man. Stokes Prichard’s thoughts had immediately leapt 
towards Julian. They had shared rooms together at Ox¬ 
ford. They had got used to each other’s little habits, 
Julian’s size in collars was the same as Prichard’s—always 
useful when one had to dress in a hurry—would he care to 
share those rooms in the Adelphi, halve expenses, and face 
temptation together? Reply desired by return of post. 

“It seems just the thing,” said Mrs. Perryam. 

“What sort of a boy is he?” asked Janet. 

When Julian said that Stokes Prichard was marvellously 
good looking, Janet approved of the proposed arrangement 
without desiring further credentials. Mr. Perryam agreed 
to the terms, which were fairly reasonable, though more 


227 


228 Heirs Apparent 

than he wanted to pay unless Julian made some contribution 
to his own expenses. 

“Well, I expect he’ll earn a bit,” said Mrs. Perryam, 
hopefully. “Journalists have gone up in the world since our 
early days in Brixton. If you had played your cards well, 
Daddy, you ought to have been a knight or a baronet by 
now. I expect Julian will be a Duke one day!” 

This brightness of speech was a glittering camouflage 
hiding a sense of sadness which made Julian suspect her of 
secret tears. It was a blow to her that he should be leaving 
home. 

“The next one to go will be Janet,” she said in a moment 
of self-revelation. “The little beast won’t be happy till she’s 
married—I only hope she’s happy then!—and presently 
your father and I will be left moping together in this large 
house. A nice prospect for premature old age!” 

“Why not chuck up Gorse Hill and take a house in 
Town?” suggested Julian. “Then we could all be together 
again, more or less.” 

His mother brightened up a little. 

“Well, there’s something in that! And it’s not the first 
time I’ve thought of it. But a house in Town is as lonely 
as a house in the country when the young birds fly away. 
That’s life. Funny old thing, isn’t it? Can’t see much 
use in it, after a certain age!” 

She repented of those words, and put her hand on his 
shoulder. 

“That’s how my tongue runs away with me! As if I 
shouldn’t be happy in watching you and Janet climbing the 
ladder! Only when you’re rich and famous don’t get 
ashamed of your poor old mother!” 

“No chance of that!” said Julian. “You’ll always give 
us a lead, mater. As for ladder climbing, there’s no stop¬ 
ping you. One rung after another, and all the aristocracy 
feeding out of your hand, like tame beasts.” 

“Yes, I know you think I’m a snob!” said Mrs. Perryam, 
pulling his hair in her playful way. “But if it hadn’t been 
for my push you’d all have been living in the Brixton Road, 
which your father regrets in his morbid moments.” 


Heirs Apparent 229 

She declared her intention of coming up to Town at least 
once a week, and breaking into his rooms, however many 
pretty ladies he might be entertaining to tea. 

“Same here/’ said Janet, who overheard her remark. “I 
shall use Julian’s rooms as a pied d terre when I lose the 
last train home. Most convenient!” 

“And I suppose Stokes Prichard will be asked to sleep on 
the sofa?” suggested Julian. 

“Why not?” asked Janet. “I'm sure he’ll be glad to lend 
me his bed.” 

“Hie thee to a nunnery 1” said Julian. 

So they mocked at each other, though beneath this play¬ 
fulness was the thought in each mind that in some way 
Julian’s departure was the beginning of that break up of 
home ties which is one of life’s little ironies. The break 
had begun in war time when Jack went away, not to return. 
Perhaps it was this memory which made Mrs. Perryam 
cling to Julian, as the night before his going she put her 
arms about him and wept for a moment with her head on 
his shoulder, ahd then accused herself of being a silly damn 
fool and perfectly idiotic. 

Julian’s grandfather was distressed also, and although 
Julian had cursed him secretly at times as a thorough-going 
nuisance, he was patient now when the old man came into 
his bedroom and thrust an envelope into his hand. 

“There’s a cheque inside for fifty pounds,” he whispered. 
“Don’t waste it on riotous living, my boy! Keep it for a 
rainy day. It’s useful to have a little nest-egg.” 

He patted Julian on the shoulder. 

“Be a good boy. Keep clear of the women folk. They 
always play the devil. I told you about that little girl in a 
hat shop at Tooting? It was a terrible warning to me. 
The very pits of Hell yawned in front of my erring feet. 
Your grandmother saved me in the nick of time when she 
made me join her Bible class. . . . 

“This journalism,” he said, “I’m not in favour of it. 
I’m afraid it’s hard to keep honest and write for the papers. 
Your father has scraped through somehow, thanks to my 
upbringing. Sensation at any price. A ceaseless record of 


230 Heirs Apparent 

immorality and crime. I’ll be surprised if you don’t lose 
your soul.” 

He took Julian’s hand and fondled it. 

“Why, it seems only yesterday that I had you on my 
knee, telling you about Puss in Boots! You had golden hair 
then, all curls, and I was afraid of your innocent eyes look¬ 
ing into my wicked old face and asking all sorts of strange 
questions, as if I knew everything about God and life, and 
the way things worked. And me such an ignorant old 
fellow!” 

“Full of wisdom, Grandad,” said Julian. 

His grandfather shook his head. 

“Very ignorant, my dear. We’re all ignorant, though we 
pretend to be wise. Soon I’ll know more. I shall be going 
into the Great Light where all things are known. Queer, 
isn’t it? When I’ve shaken off this old husk I’ll know 
more than if I’d been to Oxford like you. Perhaps I’ll be 
able to help you down here. If love can break through 
I shall keep in touch with you. That’s a pleasant thought!” 

“Why, Grandfather,” said Julian, rather moved for once, 
“you’re a youngster yet. What’s seventy-two ?” 

“That’s true,” said the old man. “My dear father was 
eighty-five before he passed over. Still, I’m getting on. 
Anyhow, Julian, I’m past the dangerous age of youth; so 
full of risk, so proud, so ignorant of pitfalls, so passionate, 
so impatient of advice. Your father wouldn’t listen to a 
word from me! Now you don’t listen to a word from your 
father. So it goes on from age to age, from folly to folly, 
and from wickedness to wickedness. No one learns from 
past experience.” 

“We have to face our own,” said Julian, yawning. “Good 
night, Grandad! Time you went to bed.” 

“Yes,” said the old man. “And I’m an old fool to waste 
my breath.” 

But he raised his hand solemnly at the door and said: 

“May God bless you and take care of you.” 

On that last night at home Mrs. Perryam and Janet were 
both rather “blue,” and Mr. Perryam adopted a hearty 
cheeriness so obviously false that it was worse than gloom. 


Heirs Apparent 231 

When Julian went into his study after dinner Mr. Perryam 
took a wine bottle out of a cupboard and said, “I think this 
is an occasion for the oldest and crustiest.” 

He poured out two glasses of port with a nervous hand. 

“I’m glad you’re beginning work, old boy,” he said. 
“You’ll feel happier. Fleet Street is a rough road but I’d 
like to be tramping it again with the chance of youth, as 
once on thirty bob a week. Here’s to the Street of Adven¬ 
ture, despite all its ups and downs, and all its villainies!” 

He raised his glass to Julian. 

“Here’s luck,” said Julian, without emotion. 

Father and son looked into each other’s eyes, with a 
smile, shy of each other. 

“Come home whenever you can,” said Mr. Perryam. 
“Most week-ends. I shan’t see much of you at the office, 
and your mother will pine without you.” 

He said nothing about his own desire for Julian’s com¬ 
pany, but it was unnecessary. 

“Janet’s a handful,” he said presently. “She scares me 
stiff with her reckless ways and audacious speech.” 

“She’s all right,” said Julian. “Wants a little taming, 
that’s all.” 

Mr. Perryam laughed, but ended with a little groan. 

“I’d hate to see her tamed! . . . Life’s so cruel some¬ 
times in that way. And my little Janet is alarmingly beau¬ 
tiful.” 

“Prettyish—not beautiful,” said Julian, with a brother’s 
coldness of vision. “Nothing like the mater.” 

“Why,” said Mr. Perryam, rather emotionally, “I’m glad 
to hear you say that, Julian, even at Janet’s expense! I like 
to know you think your mother is beautiful.” 

Later, when they left the room, Mr. Perryam put his hand 
on Julian’s arm. 

“They’ll miss you to-morrow, old boy,” he said in a voice 
that pretended to be casual and untroubled. 

It was a feeble pretence. 


XXVII 


S TOKES PRICHARD was already installed in his rooms 
in York Street, Adelphi, when Julian arrived with five 
suit cases and a trunk. He greeted Julian with prolonged 
laughter, not because he regarded his friend as a ridiculous 
object, but because, as he explained, it was extraordinarily 
comic to find themselves together again as in the old days 
when they shared rooms in the Turl at Oxford, and when 
Julian resented being awakened from his morning slumber 
by blithesome song. 

“A habit,” said Julian, “which I hope you have aban¬ 
doned with advancing age ?” 

As a proof that no such change had crept over his sunny 
spirit, Stokes Prichard immediately burst into a ballad in 
which he announced his intention to get wed in the summer 
time, to get wed in July, to get wed when the roses are red, 
and the weather is lovely and dry. 

It was obvious at a first glance that Julian’s future life 
with Stokes Prichard would be led to a musical accompani¬ 
ment. An elaborate gramophone in fumed oak stood in one 
corner of the room and a little rosewood piano shared the 
wall space opposite the window with a bookshelf in which 
Prichard had arranged his favourite authors, including 
many small volumes of Georgian poetry. The walls of the 
long low room, which was their only sitting-room, were 
panelled in oak, painted white, with a window seat covered 
with flowered chintz, and there were two bedrooms fur¬ 
nished in what Prichard called a “chaste style,” with oak 
bedsteads, two rush-bottomed chairs, and a marble-topped 
wash-stand. Some Medici prints gave an air of artistic ele¬ 
gance to the walls, and the mantelpiece was already crowded 
with photographs of girls who had been dazzled by the 
glint of Prichard’s crinkly gold hair. 

“Pretty snug as an antechamber to Life,” said that young 
232 


Heirs Apparent 233 

man, regarding the sitting room with an air of joyous satis¬ 
faction. He went to the windows and opened them wide 
so that the room was filled with the dull roar of traffic 
down the Strand and the honk-honk of innumerable taxis. 

“The music of the London streets!” said Prichard, with 
a look of ecstasy. “The call to humanity. Oh, life, oh, love, 
oh, youth! What fate awaits us in this jolly old city of sin 
and pleasure ? How are we going to shape our young souls 
in this melting pot of passionate adventure? In what way 
are we going to attune ourselves to the rhythm and melody 
of this mighty instrument called London life? Briefly and 
immediately, where shall we feed this evening?” 

They fed, naturally and inevitably, in a Soho restaurant, 
the same in which Evelyn Iffield had been wild in her gaiety, 
and chatty with the old French waiter,—a memory which 
made Julian so pensive and distrait that Stokes Prichard 
immediately suspected him of sentimental reminiscence and 
was confirmed by Julian’s guilty and embarrassed look. 

Julian felt old and cynical compared with the good look¬ 
ing fellow opposite him, who gazed round the room with 
delighted eyes and caught the admiring glances of little 
actress girls, and middle-aged women of uncertain class 
dining with foreigners and Jews, and business men giving a 
treat to suburban wives. Stokes Prichard was utterly un¬ 
touched by the tragedy of life, and eager for its adventure, 
which held no terror for him. Julian had already been 
wounded by its cruelty and put into the solitary confine¬ 
ment of his own soul by its penal laws. He could feel in 
his jacket pocket the crinkle of a piece of paper which was 
his lettre de cachet as it used to be called in the old days 
when French aristocrats—like young Mirabeau—were sent 
to the Bastille for ofifences against the social code. It was 
a letter from Evelyn. 

‘Tm glad you’re going away [she had written]. The situation has 
become rather strained in my old ghost house with Ted and the 
mother-in-law. And everybody spies on us here, I find. Besides, 
dear Julian, I don’t want to wreck your young life by tempting you 
to illicit love, or fanning your pure young passion by my wicked 
wiles. If you’re very good and reasonable we might meet in town 


234 Heirs Apparent 

now and again. I have utterly refused to be carried off to Italy if 
the mother-in-law is one of the party. In any case, however, you 
must realise that there can only be friendship between us. I want 
you to be sensible about that and not spoil things by romantic ad¬ 
venture for a lady old enough in experience of life to be your great- 
grandmamma, but young enough in years and spirit to be your 
very good and loving comrade 

“Evelyn.” 


This letter had opened his wound again. How was it 
possible to be “sensible” when the very scent of her letter 
made him yearn for her? “There can only be friendship 
between us.” These words were his lettre de cachet, his 
condemnation to eternal loneliness. And there was Stokes 
Prichard, with his crinkly hair and his laughing eyes, search¬ 
ing around for amorous adventure and expecting to find 
life a bed of roses without a thorn! 

They walked to Piccadilly after dinner, and Stokes 
Prichard—who belonged to a North Country family in a 
remote part of Lancashire and was unfamiliar with London 
except in a brief dash now and then from Oxford—was 
thrilled by the noise, the lights, the crowd, and seemed 
intoxicated by the sense of life about him. It was an 
evening in June, and at nine o’clock the sky was still flushed 
with red and a golden haze filled the streets, while purple 
shadows lay beneath the trees. The air was very still and 
warm, and heavy with the scent of passing women, and the 
smell of petrol, parched grass in the Green Park, and sun¬ 
baked tar on the roads. The nostrils of Stokes Prichard 
quivered at this symphony of London smells. He seemed 
to be walking on air, possessed by some mystical or sensuous 
enchantment in this London night. They walked up Pic¬ 
cadilly towards Hyde Park Corner, on the park side, and 
looked through the railings into the green dusk there, where 
drab couples sat close together under the leafy trees or lay 
on the yellowing grass. 

“The enchanted wood!” said Stokes Prichard. “Those 
lovers are a million miles away from this world on the 
other side of the railings. They’re in Arcady, or the Forest 
of Arden, utterly alone with romance under that twinkling 


Heirs Apparent 235 

star. City clerks and shop girls—they don’t care a damn 
for the policeman pacing up that path, or for anything hap¬ 
pening beyond the railings, in the way of Industrial Unrest, 
German Revolutions, Bolshevism, Starving Russia, Liberal 
Reunion, and all the things that one fails to read in the 
newspapers. How utterly unimportant they are to the 
individual egoist, looking into the liquid eyes of a pretty 
girl!” 

“Aren’t we rather like that ourselves?” asked Julian. 

“Looking into liquid eyes ?” asked Stokes Prichard. “No 
such luck, old dear!” 

“No, I mean ignoring the big things beyond the railings, 
thinking they don’t matter to our private lives, and won’t 
break through.” 

Stokes Prichard laughed carelessly. 

“Nothing matters if one doesn’t let it. Especially if one 
looks into liquid eyes. But, oh, the loneliness of Stokes 
Prichard in a world of fair women! To think of all the 
beautiful creatures in this great city and I am unknown to 
them, and they to me!” 

As a matter of fact, he found himself looking into liquid 
eyes before they reached Hyde Park Corner. They belonged 
to a neatly dressed girl who came walking slowly towards 
Piccadilly, and after a glance at Stokes Prichard, deliberately 
dropped a little hand bag as she passed. Prichard stooped 
quickly, picked it up, raised his hat, and said in his most 
gallant way, “Your bag, I believe?” 

“Oh, how careless of me!” said the girl. “Thank you so 
much. And haven’t I seen you before somewhere?” 

“Very likely,” said Prichard. “I’m always about with 
myself. Which way are you walking, Miss—?” 

“Miss Marjoribanks,” said the girl. “Known as Lottie.” 

She giggled, and looked enticingly at Stokes Prichard, 
and then glanced towards Julian, and asked, “Who’s your 
friend?” 

“Lord Aubrey de Vere,” said Stokes Prichard, “one of 
our ancient aristocracy, and a most exalted soul.” 

“Glad to know you, Aubrey,” said the girl. “Well, what 
shall we do?” 


236 Heirs Apparent 

“Suggest something,” said Stokes Prichard, ignoring 
Julian’s angry nudge. 

“What about a drink at the American Bar?” 

“Charming idea,” said Stokes Prichard. 

“No,” said Julian. “Not to-night.” 

He turned to the girl, and spoke in a firm but friendly 
way. 

“Frightfully sorry, but my friend has forgotten an en¬ 
gagement we made. There is no getting out of it.” 

“Rats!” said the girl. “Go away, spoil-sport! You’re no 
more a Lord than I’m Miss Marjoribanks.” 

“That’s true,” said Julian, “but I’m not going without my 
friend.” 

Stokes Prichard was astounded and distressed. 

“Hang it all, old lad—” 

“That’s all right,” said Julian. “You’re not going to leave 
me in the lurch, are you—on our first night together? If 
so, you and I break up partnership.” 

There was something in the tone of his voice, in his seri¬ 
ous look, which impressed Prichard. 

“Sorry,” he said to the girl, “I quite forgot that little 
engagement.” 

“Oh, don’t be a silly rotter!” said the girl. “Let your 
woebegone friend go and drown himself. You and I can 
go and have some fun.” 

“Coming, Prichard?” asked Julian. He strode away from 
where Stokes Prichard stood talking to the girl, hesitating 
between desire for adventure, and loyalty to friendship. A 
few moments later Prichard rejoined him, sulkily. 

“Rather priggish that, wasn’t it?” he asked in an ag¬ 
grieved voice. 

“No,” said Julian. “There’s not much of the prig about 
me. But if you want to get amorous with some one, let 
me introduce you to a decent girl.” 

“Well, there’s something to that,” said Prichard, slightly 
less ruffled. “But for Heaven’s sake, old man, don’t go 
thwarting my sense of adventure. That little girl was quite 
alluring, and a perfect lady.” 

Julian jeered at him. 


Heirs Apparent 237 

“If you think that, you’re younger than I thought you 
were, after three years at Oxford.” 

Stokes Prichard was abashed but annoyed. 

“I don’t care a damn if she wasn’t,” he remarked pres¬ 
ently, as they walked up to Knightsbridge. “I’m a student 
of life without class distinctions.” 

“I’m a snob,” said Julian, “as far as women are con¬ 
cerned. If you are asking for trouble, Prichard—and you’re 
sure to get it—keep to ladies of your own caste.” 

“In the words of the Perfect Lady,” said Prichard, mak¬ 
ing a jest at his own expense, “Rats!” 

Further argument was prevented by a sudden apparition 
in the portals of the Hyde Park Hotel between the gerani¬ 
ums. Stokes Prichard beheld it with amazement and de¬ 
light. 

“Well, I’m damned!” he exclaimed. “There’s little old 
Tarzan!” 

Clatworthy, splendid in evening clothes, under an opera 
hat rather too big for his head so that it rested gracefully 
on his ears, was obviously waiting for a lady, and smoking 
a cigarette while he waited. 

He responded to Prichard’s shout of greeting with a 
friendly wave of the hand behind the right ear, and then 
caught sight of Julian and repeated the signal behind his 
left ear. 

“Hulloh, you two! Looking for trouble in this over¬ 
rated city?” 

“Looking for a lady,” said Stokes Prichard. “Only Per- 
ryam is so particular!” 

“Well, if you want to see beauty and rank in their no¬ 
blest aspect, wait till you see my Aunt, when she’s finished 
rouging her withered old cheeks.” 

The Countess of Longhurst appeared at this moment, 
escorted by the hall porter with some ceremony. She was 
arrayed in a yellow silk cut low so that her skinny old chest 
was exposed, and the rays from the street lamps glittered 
in her diamond collar. An ermine cloak hung from her 
shoulders and gave her a somewhat regal look. 

“Who are those young Bolsheviks ?” she asked Clatworthy, 


238 Heirs Apparent 

with her lorgnette raised to regard Julian and Prichard. 

“Comrades Lenin and Trotsky,” said Clatworthy. 

But the old lady recognised Julian, and tapped him on the 
cheek. 

“You’re young Perryam! How’s that pretty mother of 
yours ?” 

Without waiting for an answer, she turned to her nephew 
again. 

“Well, you’ve been a very good boy to your ugly old 
aunt. I enjoyed that dinner, and your nonsense talk. Now 
you can run away and play with your friends, while I go 
home to bed and say a prayer or two to keep you from the 
devil, and save England from Ramsay Macdonald and all 
those damn traitors who are conspiring to ruin this poor 
old country.” 

“That’s right, Aunt!” said Clatworthy. “You go and ask 
God to bless the dear old Die-hards who, like Charles II. 
of blessed memory, are an unconscionable time a-dying.” 

“Take me to the carriage, and stop talking bosh,” said 
the Countess of Longhurst. 

Clatworthy gave her his arm, and having stowed the 
old lady into her closed brougham, winked ironically at 
Julian. 

She held her hand through the window for Julian to 
shake. 

“Time was,” she said, “when young men knew how to 
behave with elegance and respect. Now you boys have no 
manners at all. No morals either-—but I daresay that was 
the same in my young days only we weren’t supposed to 
know. Well, tell that fool in front to drive home. What’s 
he waiting for? Good night, Johnny, and don’t go and get 
drunk, or lead these young fellows into immorality.” 

“Remarkable old woman!” said Clatworthy, when the 
brougham departed. “She’s a survival from the Eight¬ 
eenth Century, hard as steel, ugly as sin, doesn’t wash be¬ 
hind the ears, but lots of spirit, and a stern sense of duty,— 
which I’ve inherited!” 

He grinned at Julian and said, “Where shall we spend a 
happy evening?” 


Heirs Apparent 239 

After some consultation it was decided to go back to the 
rooms in York Street, Adelphi, where they could yarn to 
their hearts’ content and drink some of Prichard’s whiskey. 
They would have lots to talk about. They were all begin¬ 
ning life together. Their accumulated talent, thought Clat- 
worthy, would undoubtedly make things move. As far as 
he was concerned his destiny was already clear. He had 
been given a job in the Foreign Office and was plainly 
marked out to be Ambassador in Paris before many years 
had passed. Meanwhile he was doing office boy’s work to 
a man who specialised in the economic conditions of Czecho¬ 
slovakia. 

“Where is that?” asked Stokes Prichard, blandly. “I 
seem to have heard of it.” 

“I tried to turn it up on the map the other day,” said 
Clatworthy, “but I had no luck. I rather fancy it’s an 
imaginary state created in an exuberant mood by Lloyd 
George at the Treaty of Versailles. We go on pretending 
it exists, for fear of letting the old man down.” 

It was cosy and pleasant in the rooms in York Street with 
the electric light turned on and the windows open with that 
noise of London below. They talked of Oxford, Julian’s 
plunge into journalism, Stokes Prichard’s apprenticeship to 
law, the best places to dine in London, the most amusing 
“shows,” the brightest dancing clubs. 

Clatworthy made a break, when, in a pause between tides 
of talk, he asked Julian if he had seen much of the beautiful 
and dangerous Mrs. Iffield. 

“Not much,” said Julian, sharply. 

“Ah,” said Clatworthy, “discretion is the better part of 
valour, with a girl like that. Especially when she has a 
large-sized husband.” 

“Don’t talk rot!” said Julian, so fiercely that Clatworthy 
was instantly aware that he had “dropped a brick,” and with 
unaccustomed tact changed the topic. 

“Give us a bit of the latest rag,” he said to Stokes Prich¬ 
ard, who played anything he had heard once with unfailing 
similitude and brilliant vamping. 

Prichard played the “Kitten on the Keys,” almost as well 


240 Heirs Apparent 

as Melville Gideon, and Clatworthy was inspired to his 
monkey tricks, and was a playful anthropoid on the window 
seat, so that even Julian forgot his broken heart for a while, 
and laughed till the tears came into his eyes. Stokes Prich¬ 
ard excelled himself at the piano, and presently he and Clat¬ 
worthy burst forth into song and, to a loud and majestic 
accompaniment, rendered the moving ballad of “Camden 
Town, My Camden Town!” 

It was at the end of the second verse of this London 
lyric—“Night time in the Flats, with the stars above”—that 
the door opened violently and an elderly man of remarkable 
appearance entered without invitation. He was in his pyja¬ 
mas, with bedroom slippers on bare feet, and an old dressing- 
gown of brown cloth girdled loosely around the waist. He 
had a high forehead, gaunt cheeks, a white beard and mous¬ 
tache, and very bright, humorous eyes; and he bore an as¬ 
tonishing resemblance to the picture of Don Quixote by 
Gustav Dore. 

For a moment only Julian saw him, the other two continu¬ 
ing their solemn and lugubrious chant, until a change in the 
atmosphere, due to the open door, attracted Prichard’s at¬ 
tention. He turned his head, slurred his notes, and looked 
transfixed with surprise. Clatworthy also ceased singing 
and regarded the uninvited guest with haughty astonish¬ 
ment. 

“For God’s sake,” said the stranger, with a kind of pas¬ 
sionate quietude, “how do you think I can do my writing 
with this racket on the floor below? How can I save the 
world from its folly when youth persists in playing the fool 
—at half past midnight?” 

Clatworthy was the first to recover self-possession. 

“Pardon me,” he said politely. “Is it really necessary that 
you should save the world from folly? Is it indeed possible, 
sir, or even advisable?” 

The elderly stranger regarded him severely, but with a 
momentary glint of humour in his steely eyes. 

“Young man,” he said, “I don’t care to bandy words with 
you at this time of night. I merely ask you to desist from 


Heirs Apparent 241 

inflicting torture on a sensitive brain by this unholy and un- 
melodious noise.” 

It was Stokes Prichard who felt challenged by those last 
words. 

“Not unmelodious,” he said. “A primitive theme, simply 
expressed, somewhat banale in its rhythm, but not unmelodi¬ 
ous. Perhaps, sir, you have no ear for music ?” 

“You young gentlemen are, undoubtedly, from Oxford,” 
answered the stranger. “As an old Christ Church man I 
recognise, as from afar, that insolent accent, that cold ar¬ 
rogance of ignorant minds disguised under smiling courtesy, 
that entrenched conceit which has been the strength of the 
English caste system now broken and doomed by the ad¬ 
vance of democracy. You, if I may say so, are probably 
the last representatives of that peculiarly offensive attitude 
of mind known as the Oxford manner.” 

“This,” said Clatworthy, with a wink at Julian, “is ex¬ 
tremely interesting. May we beg of you to close the door— 
it's rather draughty—and expound to us further the thesis 
which you have so pleasantly laid down ?” 

The stranger laughed quietly in his beard. 

“Look here,” he said, dropping his stilted language, “I 
don’t want to spoil sport, but I do want to get on with a bit 
of work. I’m a writing man. You may have read about 
me in some low rag or other. I’m Henry Caffyn.” 

“Good Heavens!” said Stokes Prichard in a voice of awe, 
as though beholding an archangel. 

“Great Jupiter!” said Clatworthy. 

“Good Lord!” said Julian. 

“Well, you seem to know me,” said the elderly man. His 
eyes twinkled with internal amusement. “I’m surprised that 
my infamy has travelled as far as Oxford.” 

It had travelled further than Oxford. All over the world 
for twenty years past, the essays, poems, and newspaper 
articles of Henry Caffyn had been the intellectual food of 
minds not too conventional to be shocked by his scathing 
satire, not too solemn to miss his Puck-like humour, not too 
ignorant to appreciate his immense range of scholarship, 


242 Heirs Apparent 

and not too conservative to hate his radical temperament, 
his attacks on the snob mind, his defence of liberty, his love 
of the under dog—as many hated him and feared him. 

“Do sit down and talk to us,” said Julian. “We’re fright¬ 
fully sorry to have disturbed your work.” 

“Good Heavens, yes!” said Clatworthy. “It’s like barging 
in where angels fear to flutter.” 

“That’s all right,” said Henry Caffyn. “Any time up to 
midnight. And if you’ll let me join you sometimes, and 
smoke a pipe—” 

“Any old time,” said Stokes Prichard. 

Henry Caffyn looked from face to face. 

“I’m a dull old fogey,” he said, “but I like fellows of your 
age. I want to save you, if I can. I want to teach you to 
save yourselves. You don’t seem much inclined that way.” 

“From what particular danger?” asked Clatworthy. “So¬ 
cialism, Bolshevism, Fascicism, Winston Churchill, Lord 
Curzon, Wine, Women, or Prohibition?” 

Henry Caffyn smiled, and put a hand on his shoulder. 

“I won’t freeze your young blood at this midnight hour. 
All I can say is that if you boys don’t begin to get busy, the 
Old Men of the Mountains are going to make a horrible 
mess of things again. I can see it coming. Europe is a 
mass of molten lava under a thin crust of make-believe. 
Take care you don’t pop in, all of you. Well, good night, 
and thanks for your kind patience with my impertinent in¬ 
trusion.” 

He tied the cord tighter round his waist, thrust his fingers 
through his white beard, and strode out of the room, closing 
the door behind him. 

“Strike me pink, indigo, and ultramarine 1” said Clat¬ 
worthy. “Who would have thought that old rasper was 
Henry Caffyn! The idol of my youth, a blasphemer and 
heretic to my sacred Aunt, the arch-enemy of all my Die¬ 
hard relatives!” 

“I always thought him a humourist,” was Prichard’s first 
remark. “To-night he spoke like Job uttering one of his 
less cheerful prophecies.” 

“Yes,” said Julian, “he’s one of those old birds who look 


Heirs Apparent 243 

to ‘Youth’ to pull the chestnuts out of the fire. Good 
Heavens! How I hate that word ‘Youth’!” 

Clatworthy sucked at his empty pipe, in a reflective mood. 

“Look here, ‘chaps,’ as the townees say, joking apart and 
all that, don’t you think we’d better try and find out what’s 
going on in this ridiculous old world? I mean before some¬ 
thing gets up and hits us. So far I’ve restricted my news¬ 
paper reading to the sporting page and the brighter divorce 
news. But an occasional head-line has caught my eye now 
and then. I fancy we’d better begin to sit up and take no¬ 
tice. There’s a fellow in the Foreign Office—” 

He broke off his sentence and was silent. 

“Well?” asked Julian. 

“Well, I won’t repeat things out of school, so to speak. 
But the gist of his remarks amounted to the gentle warning 
that a particularly unpleasant form of Hell is boiling up in 
Central Europe, while elderly statesmen are carelessly 
throwing lighted matches about in the neighbourhood of 
powder magazines. In other words, playing with fire, like 
silly kids. At the same time various devils in the under¬ 
world are stoking the fires for all they’re worth and looking 
forward cheerfully to the Big Bang.” 

The three friends were silent for some time. 

“If it comes, it comes,” said Julian. “I don’t see what we 
can do.” 

“It’s pretty snug in this room, anyhow,” said Stokes Prich¬ 
ard. “Thank God for that, and the rafters look fairly 
strong!” 

This remark was greeted with jeers and laughter, and 
after further comments on the personality of Henry 
Caffyn, Clatworthy announced his intention of sleeping on 
the sofa, which he did, in a pair of Julian’s pyjamas. 


XXVIII 


T HE offices of The Week were not enormously far from 
York Street, Adelphi, that is to say, on the north side 
of Fleet Street, up a side turning—a great block of build¬ 
ings with a frontage of granite pillars and plate glass win¬ 
dows on which the name of the paper was emblazoned in 
gigantic gilt letters with the watchword of “England, God, 
and Truth,” and the claim that “The Week has the Largest 
Circulation of Any Weekly Paper in the World.” On each 
side of the doorway in frames of fumed oak were the posters 
of the current number. On the left-hand side was a portrait 
of Victor Buckland with the title of his latest article: 

“America Jeers at John Bull.” 

On the right hand side was a portrait of a plump lady in 
bathing dress with the title— 

“Who Would Like to Meet Her in the Sea?” 

Julian decided that he would not like to meet her in the 
sea, wondered why God came second in the motto of “Eng¬ 
land, God, and Truth,” and plunged through a brass-bound 
door, into a spacious hall which was obviously the central 
office for enquiries, advertisements, and book-keeping. 
Rows of clerks, among whom were several girls with fluffy 
hair, were busy behind mahogany counters, several seedy- 
looking men in bowler hats which needed brushing were 
studying the files of the paper, and a line of people, mostly 
women, were standing in queue in front of a glass window 
on which was the word “Advertisements.” 

Julian extracted a visiting card from his waistcoat pocket, 
handed it to a Commissionaire who looked like an Admiral 
of the Fleet, and said he desired to see Mr. Horace Burton, 
the news editor. 

“Very likely,” said the Commissionaire. “But will he see 
you, that's the question? Never sees no one, unless by ap¬ 
pointment.” 


244 


Heirs Apparent 245 

“That’s all right,” said Julian, haughtily. “I’m the Edi¬ 
tor’s son, and a new member of the staff.” 

The Commissionaire looked less like an Admiral, for a 
moment. 

“Oh, well,” he said, “why didn’t you tell me before? 
You’ve only got to walk up. Room Number 30. Mr. Bur¬ 
ton’s office boy will put you through.” 

Mr. Burton’s office boy was even more hostile to the idea 
of seeing Mr. Burton. He was an anaemic youth, absorbed 
in a story by Ethel M. Dell, from which he dragged him¬ 
self unwillingly. 

“Mr. Burton? . . . Engaged.” 

“I’ve an appointment,” said Julian. 

“They all say that. Got it in writing?” 

The same question had been put to Julian by old Buck- 
land’s footman. This time his Balliol pride resented it. 

“I’ll knock your damned little head off if you don’t take 
my word,” he said. 

This threat did not make the youth quail. On the con¬ 
trary, his upper lip curled offensively. 

“That cave-man stuff don’t work in this office,” he an¬ 
swered. “We’ve a staff of chuckers-out on the premises. 
You’d best be careful, young fellow.” 

Fortunately an inner door opened, and a girl came out 
with a bundle of letters. 

“Pardon me,” said Julian, politely, “would you be good 
enough to tell Mr. Burton that I’ve an appointment with 
him. I’m Mr. Perryam’s son.” 

The girl laughed, and turned to the office boy. 

“Take this gentleman’s card in, Smith, or you’ll get the 
sack before you can say Jack Robinson.” 

“Yes,” said the boy, “and the last boy got the sack for 
handing in a card from a professional pugilist with a grudge 
against The Week. Said he had an appointment. They all 
say so. Then I gets the blame! It isn’t justice.” 

He took the card sulkily, returned in a moment, and said, 
“He’ll see you.” 

Julian found himself face to face with Mr. Horace Burton 
in the inner room. He was a man of about thirty-five, 


246 Heirs Apparent 

clean-shaven, with a haggard look, evasive eyes, and un¬ 
friendly smile. 

“So you're the Editor’s son!” he said. “Take a seat. . . . 
Your father told me you were coming along.” 

“Yes,” said Julian, taking a seat. 

Mr. Horace Burton tapped a tune on his table with the 
end of his penholder, and gave a fleeting glance at Julian. 

“Oxford, aren’t you?” he said. 

Julian nodded. 

“I came down. Rather fed up with it.” 

The news editor seemed to find that remark amusing. 

“This won’t be so pleasant,” he said. “I was telling your 
father— However, it’s none of my business.” 

“I’m prepared to find it unpleasant,” said Julian. “Most 
work is, I’m told.” 

Mr. Horace Burton’s thin lips twisted into a painful smile. 

“This work, anyhow,” he said, with a hint of bitterness. 

He sat silent for what seemed to Julian like a long time, 
once letting his evasive eyes rest for a moment on Julian’s 
well-cut clothes. 

“Your father tells me the Old Man has sent you on the 
news side,” he said presently. “As a matter of fact I had a 
note from the Old Man himself.” 

He flicked a bit of paper on his desk with the end of his 
penholder. 

“Yes,” said Julian. “That’s why I’ve come.” 

It did not appear to him that his father’s news editor wel¬ 
comed his coming with overwhelming enthusiasm. 

“Do you know anything?” asked Mr. Burton. 

Julian countered that dangerous enquiry by another ques¬ 
tion. 

“In what way ?” 

“In any way. . . . Do you know any actresses?” 

“Not yet,” said Julian, hopefully. 

“Anything about sporting life?” 

“A little about sport,” said Julian. 

“Any bookmakers, trainers, jockeys, racing men?” 

“Not one. Rather a tough crowd, aren’t they?” 

Mr. Burton continued his line of enquiry. 


Heirs Apparent 247 

‘‘Have you come into touch with the Dope trade at all?” 

Julian shook his head. 

“Or the White Slave Trade?” 

“No,” said Julian, “I’ve a very vague idea about that.” 

Mr. Horace Burton smiled in a cynical, hostile way. 

“Then what’s the good of your joining The Week?” he 
asked. “Didn’t your distinguished father tell you that we 
get our circulation out of the revelation of vice, corruption, 
scandal and crime? At least, that’s my job, on the news 
side. I’m not an idealist, like your father! I’m the man 
with the muck rake.” 

He laughed, but in a harsh, rasping way, as though he 
hated the paper for which he worked, and his own part in it. 

“Well,” said Julian, “I might breeze around and see a few 
things.” 

Mr. Burton seemed slightly annoyed at that phrase “breeze 
around.” 

“Oh, of course, if you want to be a parlour boarder—” 
he exclaimed, with sarcasm, “I had a word with your 
father about that. ‘We’ve no use for parlour boarders,’ I 
said.” 

“And what did the governor say?” asked Julian. 

Mr. Burton glanced at Julian doubtfully. 

“Said you’d better do the real thing. Of course, if you 
feel like that—” 

“I suppose your fellows have to make a start at some 
time?” said Julian, beginning to feel rather embarrassed by 
his ignorance. 

“Oh, lots of them start,” said Horace Burton, with a sinis¬ 
ter smile. “They don’t last long as a rule. Either I sicken 
their young souls by the jobs I put them to, or the Old 
Man asks your father to give them the sack—he hates doing 
it!—because they fail to produce the right kind of stuff. 
Of course, as you’re the Editor’s son, I shall have to be 
careful with you. Treat you tenderly, eh?” 

“Oh, you needn’t bother about that,” said Julian, care¬ 
lessly. “I’ve no illusions that journalism is a bed of roses. 
After all, I’m the son of a journalist.” 

“Yes,” said Horace Burton, “I wonder your father—” 


248 Heirs Apparent 

He did not finish the sentence, but spoke in a more 
friendly way. 

“I don’t want to discourage you, of course. But, as I 
was telling your father, I don’t want you to start with false 
ideas. Lots of young fellows pass through my hands. 
They ‘breeze down’ from Oxford—like you—and imagine 
that journalism as it’s done on The Week is going to be 
rather a lark, with opportunities for brilliant writing and 
front seats at all the peepshows of life. When they get the 
sack, or chuck the job, they spread the tale about that Horace 
Burton is a hard fellow. That’s my reputation, as I dare¬ 
say your father may have told you. They think I’m a sort 
of ogre because I put them through the mill, and grind their 
bones to make my bread. That’s what I’m here for! That’s 
how I hold down my job. Do you think the Old Man would 
keep me as news editor—or let your father keep me—un¬ 
less I held the circulation at something like two million? 
How do you think I do that?” 

“I haven’t an idea,” said Julian, although he thought of 
the Old Man’s “principles of success.” 

Mr. Burton swung back in his swivel chair and smiled at 
his desk. 

“Your father knows—though he leaves me to do the dirty 
work. By hunting out scandals, getting up scares, nosing 
out vice. By using my reporters as scavenger dogs for all 
that filth, without mercy and without rest. When they get 
tired, I scrap them. When they get squeamish, I put their 
little noses deeper in the dirt. Now don’t say I didn’t tell 
you. . . . And don’t give me away to your father!” 

Julian sat silent, thinking hard. He wouldn’t give this 
man away to his father. What hurt him was that his father 
had been given away by Burton. It was a tragic and terrible 
thought that his father, so kind, so high-minded in his home- 
life, so devoted to his family, should be responsible for a 
paper which seemed to stink in the nostrils of its own staff. 
Had he a blind spot in his conscience ? Or had he gradually 
drifted into a position which he couldn’t leave without 
wrecking his whole life ? Or was his news editor exaggera¬ 
ting the abomination of his own paper, and the vileness of 


Heirs Apparent 249 

his own work? Julian had often jeered at The Week, but 
then he was contemptuous of all popular publications of the 
same kind. Lots of respectable people read the thing with¬ 
out disgust. Old Buckland, the “old horror/’ as Julian 
called him, was generally regarded as a great Patriot, uphold¬ 
ing the fine old traditions of John Bull, and the divinely ap¬ 
pointed mission of the British Empire. He claimed to be 
on terms of personal friendship with God. Admirable old 
ladies, like the Countess of Longhurst, regarded him as a 
bulwark against the forces of Bolshevism. The common 
people idolised him because he exposed the scandals of pub¬ 
lic bodies and public men, defended their pleasures against 
the kill-joys, and gave excellent racing tips. In the early 
days of the war, so his father had told him, The Week had 
been worth more as a recruiting agency than any other organ 
of public opinion, and had acted throughout as “The Sol¬ 
dier’s Friend.” And Julian’s father was its editor. His own 
education and way of life had been paid for by its profits, as 
his father had often reminded him. It was a ghastly 
thought, and yet—for his father’s sake—Julian began to 
prepare a defence in his own mind for this class of journal¬ 
ism. It couldn’t be utterly vile if his father earned his 
living by it. Even the Old Man must have some good 
qualities somewhere, masked by his grossness and his 
blatancy, because Julian’s father was loyal to him, in spite 
of contempt. 

“The compromise of life!” thought Julian, his own loyalty 
stirred by the thought of his father’s generous qualities of 
character. 

Horace Burton was watching him while he sat there mak¬ 
ing a little pattern on the floor with the ferrule of his stick. 

“Well ?” he asked, less harshly. “I don’t want to put you 
off, you know! If you’re anything like your father, you 
ought to have the journalistic instinct. Besides, I’ve got to 
make use of you, whether I like it or not. The Editor’s son, 
eh?” 

“That’s all right,” said Julian. “When do I start?” 

Horace Burton smiled at his desk, and reached for a bit 
of paper, under a paper weight. 


250 


Heirs Apparent 

“We’re doing a big stunt on the dope traffic. There’s a 
man who can tell you all about it, and show you things. 
Here’s his address. Get the story, and if it’s good, I’ll 
feature it.” 

He handed the paper to Julian, said “Good morning, Per- 
ryam,” and rang the bell for his lady typist. 

Outside the door Julian looked at the slip of paper. On it 
was written the name “Vivian Harshe,” and some number 
in a street off Drury Lane. He took a taxi to that address. 


XXIX 


F OR three weeks Julian pursued “dope” to its most secret 
lairs, consorted with dope fiends, watched the dope traf¬ 
ficker passing its white poison to neurotic girls and degen¬ 
erate boys, and lived, dreamed, and worked with dope on 
the brain, fascinated in a horrible way by this unveiling of 
morbid psychology which until then had been beyond the 
range of his experience and imagination. 

It was in the company of Mr. Vivian Harshe, who con¬ 
fessed that he had been addicted to the drug but claimed 
that he had been cured by Christian Science. Julian sus¬ 
pected that it was only a temporary cure and waited with a 
kind of dreadful interest for the almost inevitable relapse of 
the poor wretch who was earning a few guineas by his 
revelations of the habit that had wrecked his life. 

He called himself an actor, and was undoubtedly a gentle¬ 
man. When Julian first called on him at his address in 
Drury Lane, he found him lying in bed at midday in a dirty 
little room on the fifth floor of a block of flats inhabited, it 
seemed, by theatrical sempstresses, Jewish tailors, foreign 
waiters and their wives, single women of more than doubtful 
character, scene-shifters, stage carpenters, and young men, 
flashily dressed, shifty eyed, without visible means of liveli¬ 
hood, who were, according to Vivian Harshe, professional 
“crooks” in every branch of the game from blackmail to 
burglary. 

Harshe had shouted, “Who’s there?” when Julian had 
knocked at his door, and looked thoroughly scared when he 
opened the door an inch or two and listened to Julian’s ex¬ 
planation of his mission from The Week. He was in a pair 
of dirty pyjamas with bare feet in slippers, and his face had 
something like a three days’ growth of beard. Yet there 
was something in the*look of the fellow, in his tone of voice, 
which suggested good breeding, in spite of his seedy appear- 

251 


252 Heirs Apparent 

ance, and the squalor of the room behind him. His hand 
trembled like that of a man with ague, as he lit a half- 
smoked cigarette after asking Julian to step in. 

“Take the chair,” he said, “and mind the hind leg on the 
off side. It’s a bit crooked. I’ll sit on the bed. Excuse the 
squalor, won’t you? I’m rather down in luck at the mo¬ 
ment.” 

Julian sat on the broken-legged chair which he propped 
up against the wall, and while he made a few opening re¬ 
marks, glanced round the room. It was furnished merely 
with an iron bedstead, a wash-stand with cracked jug and 
basin in which old slops were lying, a deal table covered with 
oil cloth, much ink-stained, and the chair. The walls were 
mildewed and the paper was torn and stained, with here and 
there a naked patch of plaster showing beneath the cracked 
ceiling. On the mantelpiece was the photograph of a girl 
in evening dress—pretty, and certainly a lady—and next to 
it was a tobacco pot bearing the arms of Christ Church. It 
was that tobacco pot which caused Julian to feel a sudden 
shock of horror. Was it possible that this fellow had been 
at the House? 

Vivian Harshe saw his glance arrested by the pot and 
answered his unspoken question. 

“Yes. I don’t look like it, do I? Eton and Christ 
Church. My God! And now Blindman Alley, Drury Lane. 
That’s life!” 

“I’m Balliol,” said Julian, avoiding any comment on this 
downfall. 

“I guessed as much,” said the man with the unshaven 
chin. “Have a cigarette?” 

He handed Julian a packet of Yellow Perils, and apolo¬ 
gised for his shaking hand, which spilt one on the floor. 

“My nerves have gone to pieces. Partly the jolly old war 
—I was wounded in Trones Wood—partly drugs, partly the 
terrific effort I’m making to keep off dope. Oh, I’ve been 
through Hell all right!” 

And then, bit by bit, in that filthy little room, and after¬ 
wards when he had shaved himself, and looked ten years 
younger, and joined Julian at a restaurant in Leicester 


Heirs Apparent 253 

Square, he told his story, with a candour that was based on 
self-pity, and the companionship of a man of his own caste, 
and the prospect of earning good money. It was not a 
pleasant story. Julian shivered once or twice at the details 
of it, and glanced at him sometimes with pity and disgust. 
It was difficult to eat with a man whose hand trembled so 
that he spilt things, whose cuffs were dirty and frayed, 
and who was rather loathesome because of the weakness to 
which he confessed. All the same he had had hard luck, a 
very bad deal of cards from fate. 

He had been perfectly all right till that wound of his made 
his nerves go wrong. He had done pretty well in the war, 
as captain of a machine gun company. The M.C. and all 
that! After leaving hospital, and before the end of the war 
he had married a nice girl. 

“That was her photograph on the mantelpiece. I keep it 
although she bunked off with another fellow, poor kid. I 
don’t blame her. I gave her a hell of a time when I took 
to drugs. She couldn’t understand my irritability, my sud¬ 
den rages, my weak, silly tears when I couldn’t get the stuff. 
Thought I was going mad or something. So I was, in a 
way. . . . Well, it didn’t help me when she went off with 
my best friend.” 

It was an actress girl who introduced him to dope. A 
friend of his in the old days, before the war, used to serve 
in a tea shop in Oxford. “You know how these things 
happen!” He met her in Piccadilly one day and took her to 
lunch for old times’ sake. It was after a quarrel with his 
wife. She noticed that his nerves were all wrong. “What 
you want is a bit of a tonic. Take a sniff of this, old dear!” 
She had a little white powder screwed up in a bit of paper, 
and held it under his nose and giggled. He sniffed it, and 
in a few moments felt wonderfully better—strangely calm 
and soothed. His brain seemed to clear of all worry. The 
fretfulness of life left him. He felt self-controlled, content, 
happy, even. 

“That’s good stuff,” he said. “Where do you get it?” 

The girl had laughed, told him it didn’t do to be seen 
about with it. There was a prejudice against it! But she 


254 Heirs Apparent 

could introduce him to some boys who could get it all right. 
On the quiet. 

She did. He entered the inner gang of dope fiends, be¬ 
come one of the passers on, made money by it. He was 
caught once, and imprisoned, under another name. It was 
agony—that time he served—without the dope. He used to 
cry and rave in his cell. When he came out he tried to 
avoid the gang, became a film actor, and did rather well on 
the “movies.” Then his craving came back. He tried to re¬ 
sist it, fought with it—and failed. There was a Chinese 
restaurant keeper down at Limehouse—one of the biggest 
merchants in dope. Harshe became his agent in return for 
enough to keep going, and a few extra guineas when he 
passed the stuff to those who wanted it. He became the 
slave of that yellow devil who had no bowels of compas¬ 
sion for all the boys and girls he ruined. 

“I expect you’ve ruined a few too,” said Julian, coldly. 

Harshe flushed up to the roots of his hair, and then be¬ 
came deadly pale. 

“I’m paying for it,” he said. “I’m in purgatory.” 

Then he had been cured by Christian Science. Something 
had urged him to go into the Christian Science Church near 
Sloane Square, one day. It was hot, and he was feeling ill, 
and the church looked cool. There was a girl in there who 
spoke to him. She said, “You look bad,” and asked if she 
could do anything. “I am bad,” he said, “rank bad,” and 
had a kind of shivering fit. The girl wasn’t frightened. 
She looked at him as though she understood and said, “I 
guess it’s dope.” She was an American girl. He confessed 
to her—the whole damn story, and she listened quietly and 
nodded her head. “You’ve finished with that,” she told him. 
“Stay here for half an hour saying ‘Faith! Faith!’ with¬ 
out thinking of anything. When you leave this place you 
won’t want to touch it again.” The extraordinary thing was 
that when he left the church and walked towards Piccadilly 
to meet one of the boys—he had a wad of the stuff in his 
pocket—he knew that he was cured. He turned off down 
Grosvenor Gardens, walked to the Albert Bridge, and pitched 
the stuff over the Thames Embankment. He hadn’t touched 


Heirs Apparent 255 

it since. That was three months ago. Physically he suf¬ 
fered agonies—see how his hand shook! But morally he 
was cured—perhaps the only cure ever known. A miracle, 
beyond doubt. 

“It’s Faith,” he said. “If you ask me what I mean by 
that, I can’t tell you. Some people say it’s intense auto¬ 
suggestion. The Christian Scientists say it’s Christ’s heal¬ 
ing power. All I know is that blasphemer and heretic as I 
was, I’m cured of the dope. That’s good enough for me.” 

They were sitting in the window seat of the restaurant 
in Leicester Square, and Julian noticed that two well 
dressed girls were watching them. They were thin-faced 
girls, powdered and rouged, but not grossly. They looked 
like ladies, and were quiet in their manners. Rather ill, he 
thought, with dark lines under their eyes. One of them 
left her table and came up to the window seat, and greeted 
Julian’s new acquaintance. 

“Hullo, Vivian, dear! I haven’t seen you for ages.” 

“Three months,” he said, and as he rose from his chair 
Julian noticed that he steadied himself by holding on to 
the back. 

“Don’t get up,” said the girl. “Will you let Gertie and 
me join you over a cup of coffee?” 

Vivian Harshe glanced at Julian, and then spoke in a 
low voice to the girl. 

“Coffee, yes. But nothing else this time, Madge. I’ve 
finished with that.” 

“Oh, go on!” she said. “You can trust me, Vivian dear, 
/’ve never let you down.” 

She gave a quick glance over her shoulder and then put 
her muff on the table and whispered to him. 

“Quick! Nobody’s looking.” 

Vivian Harshe shook his head and offered her a cigarette 
out of his paper packet. 

“That’s all I can give you. A gasper.” 

With a sudden rage she slapped the packet out of his 
hand and trod on the cigarettes. 

“You mean beast!” she said in a fierce whisper. “You 
know how badly I want it!” 


256 Heirs Apparent 

Then she seemed to pull herself together with a desperate 
effort, and smiled so that her paint seemed to crack a little 
on each side of her lips. 

“Sorry!” she said. “I didn’t mean to get cross. You’re 
only teasing. Let me bring Gerty over.” 

“No,” said Harshe. “It’s no use, Madge. I’ve done with 
that game. I’m cured of it. A sort of miracle.” 

She stared at him with hate in her eyes. 

“You could tell a better lie than that! You little skunk! 
I’ll laugh when I see you lagged again.” 

She turned from him and for the sake of the people at 
the other tables spoke with affectation. 

“So charmed to see you again. Give my love to Auntie!” 

She moved across the room with a natural grace, but 
Julian noticed that when she rejoined the other girl she 
seemed to huddle up in her chair, and put her muff up to 
her face. 

“Who is she?” he asked. 

Vivian Harshe had sat down again, heavily, and wiped 
his forehead with the back of his hand as though the heat 
of the room made him feel faint. 

“Names barred,” he answered in a low voice. “But she 
used to be respectable.” 

He gave a weak laugh. 

“I used to meet her in the old days at a house in Chesham 
Place, before the war. She used to sing at charity con¬ 
certs. That’s her sister.” 

“What makes them take to it?” asked Julian. 

Harshe fumbled with a bit of bread, and Julian noticed 
that his finger nails were dirty and needed cutting. 

“It’s when their nerves begin to nag, and things go wrong. 
If you ask me, I should say it was the war more than 
anything. The jolly old war—so bracing to civilisation, so 
ennobling!” 

He spoke with bitter and frightful irony. 

“I don’t see what the war had to do with dope,” said 
Julian. It seemed to him that people blamed the war for 
every damn thing. 


Heirs Apparent 257 

“No, you wouldn’t!” said Harshe, glancing at him with 
a queer look of envy. “You were young enough to miss 
that orgy of emotion. There used to be lists of casualties. 
‘Dead, wounded, missing.’ Those were the lucky ones. 
I wish to Christ I’d been in the first lot—laid out by a 
clean little machine gun bullet! . . . There’s never been a 
list of other kinds of casualties—the real victims of war— 
still in hell’s agony—girls who linked up with the first 
rotter that came along because he wore a uniform and 
looked like a hero, the girls who took the lid off and thought 
war a glorious lark, made for liberty and love and green 
liqueurs; the boys who got shell shock, the lads who made 
a dash for life and got hurt—between the wheels—diseased 
in body and brain!—the men who came back after victory 
and couldn’t get a job, and drank themselves rotten with 
Comrades of the Great War. . . . Well, it’s a stale old 
story. Nobody wants to hear about it now, thank God. 
But that’s how dope came in. The need of a nerve cure 
for a nation of neurotics.” 

Julian listened with a sense of incredulity. This fellow 
was painting a lurid picture, and over-doing it. England 
was not a nation of neurotics. He thought of all the men 
he had known at Oxford—Clatworthy, Stokes Pritchard, 
Burnaby, Merryweather, Mervyn, all his crowd. A healthy 
lot, keen on every kind of game, or at least clean living 
and hearty on the whole. It was true that most of them 
were the younger brothers of the men who had been 
through the war. But they belonged to the same tradition. 
They had inherited the same spirit. Perhaps some of the 
weaklings had gone under, like this fellow, Vivian Harshe. 
It was natural that the strain had been too great for some 
of them—poor devils. Life seemed to be one huge strain, 
testing the fibre of men and women. He thought of 
Evelyn and his own strain. He had been very near to 
going under. Even now a word from her, a beckoning 
finger, would pull him across the boundary line of that 
code which he had made into a kind of religion for him¬ 
self—the code of honour in his own crowd, the moral law 


258 Heirs Apparent 

of his home life, the sense of self-control which he had 
inherited perhaps from generations of respectable, chapel¬ 
going, Bible-reading, Puritanical folks. 

“It’s loss of self-control,” he said, as though that solved 
the whole question. “Why don’t these people pull them¬ 
selves together?” 

Vivian Harshe spoke with a hint of irritation. 

“It’s not easy, old man, when the controls have broken. 
It’s impossible, barring a miracle, like mine—some astound¬ 
ing faith cure. Without faith in some power outside our¬ 
selves we can do nothing.” 

“What is faith?” asked Julian. 

Vivian Harshe gave the Eton boy’s definition. 

“The power of believing what you know to be untrue.” 

Then he laughed in his weak way and said, “There’s 
more in it than that! Perhaps God’s in it somewhere—if 
we can get in touch, so to speak. Sometimes I seem to 
get in touch with a terrific force. Life, Truth—God, call 
It what you like. If I lose touch I shall go under again 
—like a stone.” 

He stared across the restaurant, and a look of fear came 
into his eyes, as though he saw himself dropping, to the 
uttermost depths. 


XXX 


J ULIAN did not see much of his father after his ap¬ 
pointment to the staff of The Week. He saw more of 
his Armstrong Siddely car, which was always drawn up 
in a side street outside the editorial door between the hours 
of eleven and six, and latterly as late as midnight. Occa¬ 
sionally he saw his father pass in or out of this brass bound 
swing door, looking immaculate, as usual, in his morning 
suit with a white slip and the familiar tall hat—which 
Janet always brushed for him in the morning—but care¬ 
worn and harried. It came as a shock one day to Julian 
to see how worn his father looked. He had grown heavy 
of late, putting on flesh, but he did not look healthy, and 
the lines about his eyes and lips were deeper cut. On that 
morning when Julian first remarked the change in him he 
was standing on the office steps with the face of a man 
oppressed by some tragic foreboding or heavy burden of 
care. He was waiting for his car to take him to the Savoy 
where he lunched almost every day with the Old Man and 
a group of Victor Buckland’s friends in the political, busi¬ 
ness or racing worlds. Twice Julian had been invited to 
join them and had been struck by the utter aloofness of 
his father from these queer people who surrounded the 
proprietor of The Week with adulation and false bonhomie. 
He sat silent for the most part, while the conversation 
ranged from the mysteries of business politics—they seemed 
rather sinister and corrupt—to the inner secrets of racing 
stables, and the prospects of that year’s Ascot. With those 
paper manufacturers, Conservative M.P.’s, sporting peers, 
advertising managers, and racing experts, Julian’s father 
seemed to have nothing in common except his love for 
cigars and his fear of Socialism. He turned a deaf ear to 
the rather blue stories that circulated with the liqueurs, and 
once checked an anecdote from the Old Man himself by 
an abrupt reminder that they had a boy with them—mean- 

259 


260 


Heirs Apparent 

ing Julian. Old Buckland was surprised by the protest, 
and an angry colour crept up from his heavy jowl and his 
puffed eyes narrowed for a moment, before he laughed 
heartily. 

“Quite right, Perryam! Though you mustn't bring your 
lad up as a prig. He’ll never make a journalist unless he 
knows the meaning of life, rough and smooth, fair and 
foul. Human nature is our raw material. Play on that, 
or close down the printing press.” 

Julian spoke to his father that day when he was waiting 
for his car. 

“Hullo, Dad!” 

Mr. Perryam started as though struck on the shoulder. 
Then his face cleared. 

“Hullo, Julian, dear boy! I don’t see much of you these 
days. Pm infernally busy with our new Prize Competi¬ 
tion—and a thousand other things. How do you like your 
job?” 

“I don’t,” said Julian. “It’s a rotten game.” 

Mr. Perryam laughed uneasily. 

“Well, I warned you! But it’s teaching you a bit of life. 
Useful experience. We’ve all got to go through the mill. 
I did, and rather liked it.” 

“Peculiar taste!” said Julian, bitterly. “It’s deadly degra¬ 
dation.” 

Mr. Perryam put his hand on his son’s shoulder. 

“Stick it, old lad! ... It will make a man of you. . . . 
And I’ve asked young Burton not to drive you too hard.” 

“Oh, I’m not asking for a soft deal,” said Julian, im¬ 
patiently. 

The car pulled out from the side street, and pulled along¬ 
side the kerb. 

“Come down for the week-end,” said Mr. Perryam. 
“Your mother misses you abominably. And Janet’s fret¬ 
ting.” 

His face clouded for a moment. 

“I can’t think what’s happening to Janet. She seems to 
be losing her gay spirit. All nerves and fretfulness. I’m 
afraid all these late nights—” 


Heirs Apparent 261 

He got into his car and waved his hand to Julian. 

Julian did not go down for the week-end. He wrote a 
letter to his mother pleading an assignment from the news 
editor. 

“Now I’m a journalist,” he wrote, “I cannot call my life 
my own. It’s a hellish profession.” 

It wasn’t quite true about that assignment. At least, he 
could have got out of it, and Burton offered him the chance. 

“Don’t do it if you want the week-end. I can pass it on 
to young Sinclair.” 

“I’ll do it,” said Julian. He hated the idea of going 
down to Gorse Hill with Evelyn in the near neighbourhood. 
He still had an open wound. Better wait until she had 
gone to Italy, and there would be no chance of stolen meet¬ 
ings or the sight of Major Iffield in his plus fours, or 
local gossip because he no longer went to the Iffields’ house. 

He had lunch that day with Horace Burton who in his 
queer ironical way seemed to have taken a fancy to him. 
They were joined by another member of the staff, one of 
the reporters named Frank Dickson whom Julian had run 
against several times in and out of the office. He was a 
youngish man, but prematurely bald, and with a wizened 
face, full of lines which deepened when he smiled. He 
looked any age, thought Julian, from twenty-five to fifty, 
but was probably thirty or thereabouts. During the War 
he had been an officer in the Royal Naval Volunteer Re¬ 
serve, and had been twice torpedoed on some sort of craft 
which he called “the old tank.” His experiences, which he 
narrated with a whimsical humour, seemed to have filled 
him with a flame of passion against war, and he announced 
himself as an international pacifist of the most advanced 
type. It was evident to Julian, much to his astonishment, 
that Horace Burton, the news editor, was also of this brand 
of political opinion. He seemed to egg on Dickson to utter 
vitriolic stuff about the “Junkers” of England who were, it 
seemed, just as bad as those of Germany, and if anything 
a shade worse, because more self-righteous. 

“They’re at it again,” said Dickson. “They’ve learnt 
nothing, and you can’t teach ’em. First they wanted war 


262 Heirs Apparent 

in Ireland, before the bodies were cold in Flanders. When 
public opinion wouldn’t stand for it, they egged on Greece 
to fight Turkey, and when Greece collapsed they very 
nearly hustled the nation into a war with Turkey, so setting 
the whole East aflame. But those are merely side-shows. 
What they’re really arranging, not deliberately, I’ll admit, 
not even consciously, but as certainly as the smuts fall in 
Fleet Street, is a second edition of Armageddon.” 

“It’s coming nearer every day,” said Horace Burton. “I 
hope they’ll like it when the last of their boys get called 
out to fertilise the same old fields with their pretty young 
bodies. And when civilisation gets its knock-out blow.” 

“You’ll be just the right age, Perryam,” said Dickson, 
looking at him with sardonic eyes. “In another twenty 
years, I guess. That will make you forty-one and not too 
old to fight. I shall be a looker-on, in the sere and yellow, 
laughing like an old gargoyle in the face of a world in 
ruin, and saying, T told you so!’ until I’m choked to death 
with poison gas.” 

“Cheerful prospect!” said Julian, not appalled, but in¬ 
terested in these two types of newspaper men. They 
seemed to be trying to curdle his young blood. 

Horace Burton seemed annoyed by that remark. 

“You don’t believe it’s likely to happen?” he asked. 

“I don’t see the evidence,” said Julian. “I’m not worry¬ 
ing, anyhow.” 

It was the same phrase that had annoyed his father one 
evening. It seemed to annoy Burton. 

“No, curse it,” he said, with a cold passion, “nobody’s 
worrying. That’s the trouble. Even the Labour Party is 
far more concerned with its political machine and two¬ 
penny halfpenny economics than with the foreign situation 
which is likely to put them all into the melting pot. What’s 
the use of this Socialistic pap—more money for school 
teachers, another shilling for miners, a heavier Income Tax 
for the Tdle Rich’—poor devils—when another war will 
reduce Europe to the level of the Roman Empire after the 
barbarians had done with it?” 

“I thought we were all for peace these days,” said Julian. 


Heirs Apparent 263 

That remark brought shrill laughter from Frank Dickson. 

“Our editor’s son thinks we’re all for peace these days,” 
he said with sarcastic repetition. “Why, my dear child, 
our noble proprietor, and your worthy father, and half the 
proprietors and editors and sub-editors of Fleet Street, are 
asking for trouble with a diligence that is appalling.” 

“How’s that?” asked Julian. “I fail to see.” 

He didn’t fail to see altogether. Some of the articles in 
The Week , especially those by the Old Man, seemed to 
him unnecessarily crude in their attacks on America and in 
keeping up the old hate stuff against Germany, with occa¬ 
sional insults to France as a sign of impartial judgment. 
But he didn’t bother much about that sort of thing, and 
anyhow these two men were showing rather bad form, he 
thought, in attacking his father in a left-handed way. 

It was Frank Dickson who answered his question of 
“How’s that?” 

He glanced at Horace Burton, as much as to say, “Shall 
I teach this child? Is it good for him to know?” 

“The Press—as a whole—with a few decent exceptions,” 
he said, “is the enemy of Truth. It’s the fermenter of 
strife. It’s the debaucher of public opinion. At the present 
time Fleet Street is largely controlled by a small body of 
very rich men who make money by playing on the passions, 
the prejudices, and the ignorance of the mob. In most 
cases they have gained honour and profit by defending 
their political party which is always the same crowd with 
slightly different labels—the Ins and Outs. Given party 
allegiance, oil shares, rubber shares, Levantine loans, the 
wire pulling of international finance, and the lowest pos¬ 
sible ideals, how are you going to get truth ? How are you 
going to give a lead to the people? Look at The Week . 
Look at it! Divorce, dope, scandal, slush, and bucketshop 
swindles, with a careful suppression of any fact likely to 
elevate the public mind, and an artful incitement of all the 
old cruelties, passions, hatreds and follies which prevent 
any decent settlement of Europe. Germany can pay all the 
costs of the war—when she can’t. France wants security 
—and will ruin Europe to get it and then destroy herself 


264 Heirs Apparent 

by the next inevitable war. The Russian Red Army is a 
rabble crowd—when it’s the most sternly disciplined army 
in Europe. America is a selfish dollar-grabbing nation— 
when it fed the starving people of Europe with a generosity 
never equalled in the history of the world. The Peace 
Treaty of Versailles must be maintained, though it was a 
violation of every ideal for which we were supposed to be 
fighting. We must have a big air fleet because France is 
building aeroplanes. We must spend millions, and more 
millions on Naval bases because Japan is dangerous—in 
spite of the Washington Treaty. Our chemists are prepar¬ 
ing a poison gas which will penetrate any mask and wither 
the grass in the fields because the next war will be fought 
in the air and victory will be to those who drop the most 
bombs and choke the most people. God loves the dear old 
British Lion especially when it thumps its tail and snarls 
at the whole damn world. That’s The Week —plus sex 
stuff, racing tips, immense prizes, gigantic lotteries!” 

“Why do you work for it then,” asked Julian, irritably, 
“if you disapprove so strongly of its tone—” 

The question seemed to amuse Burton and Dickson. 
They laughed and winked at each other. Horace Burton 
explained the seeming paradox. 

“Having become journalists in our youthful ignorance 
of its iniquities, we get the best paid job we can find, and 
carry out the policy of its proprietor, according to contract, 
keeping our own ideals for private use on Sundays and 
Bank Holidays. That’s the law of the Street, from which 
there is no escape. Presently one’s ideals wear rather thin, 
unless they have the rugged quality of Frank Dickson 
there.” 

Yes, they were trying to curdle his blood all right, like 
elder boys in a school who try to scare the first term 
youngster with tales of brutality and hardship. Julian 
wasn’t scared. But he realised that underneath the exag¬ 
geration of this language there was an element of truth, 
and he felt a pity, not for himself but for these two men, 
and above all for his father, who were the servants of a 
man they despised, and, while helping to shape public 


Heirs Apparent 265 

opinion, impotent to raise its moral standard or to express 
their own ideals. Perhaps that was what made his father 
so crushed looking and so care-worn. It couldn’t be good 
fun to work like a galley slave at a job for which he had 
nothing but contempt, and for a man who was just a 
damned old hypocrite and bully. More and more he realised 
the extent of his father’s sacrifice for his family’s sake. 
Always working to keep the pot boiling at a job he hated. 
Poor old governor! 

That war stuff did not frighten him. He did not believe 
in it. It was the talk of the older crowd, still obsessed by 
the tragedy of the war years and full of dismal forebod¬ 
ings. Some intuition of youth, or some refusal of soul to 
envisage the world in ruin, told him that his crowd, the 
younger generation, would never allow that next war to 
happen. Other things might happen, unpleasant, and dis¬ 
turbing, perhaps disintegrating, but not that. History 
wouldn’t repeat itself. Julian stared across the cafe in 
Fleet Street where he sat with his colleagues and for a 
moment wondered what his own future would be. He 
would have to get clear of Fleet Street before it closed 
about him and made him like these two men opposite, dis¬ 
illusioned, bitter, soured with life. If only he could write 
that novel in the style of Galsworthy, or a play like “The 
White Headed Boy.” He would have to make another 
shot at it, after hours, even if he worked all night. . . . 


XXXI 


S TOKES PRICHARD did not spend much of his time 
in the rooms he shared with Julian. His only regular 
hour of attendance was between nine and ten, when he par¬ 
took of a leisurely breakfast in his pyjamas, with The Daily 
Mail propped up against the cruet and the gramophone on 
a chair by his side, nerving him—as he said—for the battle 
of the day by rag-times of extraordinary violence. He was 
invariably late for his office, owing to the difficulty of 
choosing a tie, the loss of a collar stud, and other acci¬ 
dentals of a gentleman’s toilet, and complained that his 
uncle, of Prichard, Bentham and Backthorne, to whom he 
was articled, had no consideration for the liberties of life, 
and expected him to be looking bright and busy at the 
stroke of ten. “Which,” said Stokes Prichard, at five min¬ 
utes past ten, “is absurd!” 

He generally dined out, in morning or evening dress, 
according to the company and class of restaurant which he 
honoured with his beauty and grace. If in evening dress, 
Julian, coming back from his journalistic adventures, found 
the sitting room as well as his bedroom littered with dis¬ 
carded garments—a sock here, a collar there—and a friendly 
message scrawled on a piece of paper and propped up 
against the clock. 

“Exploring the under-world to-night. Don’t sit up, 
dearie.” Or—“Terpsichore calls me this evening. Thine 
till death.” Or again—“Life would be endurable but for 
its pleasures. Off to a party with Clatworthy.” 

Signed with a cross and the statement “Stokes Prichard, 
his mark,” or with the symbol of a heart pierced with an 
arrow. 

Julian, in bed as a rule not much later than midnight, 
after a day of squalid experience which made him feel soiled 
with the dirt of life—Horace Burton, the news editor, was 

266 


Heirs Apparent 267 

driving him hard, no parlour boarder treatment—heard 
Prichard fumbling at the latchkey some time in the small 
hours, stumbling against the furniture in the sitting room, 
and feeling his way cautiously but not quietly to his bed¬ 
room door. Occasionally when Julian turned on his light, 
Prichard came pirouetting into his room, somewhat flushed 
in complexion at times, and sat on the edge of his bed while 
he smoked one cigarette after another and gave comic ver¬ 
sions of his evening’s entertainment. 

He had met several Oxford men in town—Burnaby and 
Mervyn among them. They knew crowds of people and 
had some very charming sisters of their own. Mervyn’s 
sister Pearl was quite a peach and wonderfully good fun, 
though not beautiful, alas! Ready for any kind of lark. 
A bunch of them including Pearl had gone to the Palais 
de Danse at Hammersmith, all among the little shop girls 
and their boys. On another night they motored out to the 
Fair at Barnet and went up in the boat swings, made them¬ 
selves nearly sick on the roundabouts, and had a splendid 
time with the cockshies. 

‘‘You ought to have been there, old boy! This journal¬ 
istic work of yours is wearing you to a shadow. Be¬ 
sides—” 

“Well?” asked Julian. 

“Well, Clatworthy and I have been talking about you. 
The Week isn’t your style, old son. That dope stuff you’re 
writing doesn’t make pleasant reading. It’s a bit decadent, 
isn’t it?” 

“Very much so,” said Julian. “But it’s a phase of life. 
I may as well know.” 

“I should give it a miss, if I were you. There are some 
things one doesn’t want to know. At least not to wal¬ 
low in.” 

“I agree,” said Julian. “But I’m beginning to take a 
serious view of life, strange as it may seem. And out of 
the wisdom I’ve been gaining I’ll give you a word of ad¬ 
vice, Prichard.” 

“What’s that, dearie?” 

“If I were you I wouldn’t drink so many cocktails, and 


268 Heirs Apparent 

I wouldn’t take a little shop girl to the picture palace. That 
kind of thing, I fancy, leads to other kinds of things, in¬ 
cluding dope and the devil.” 

Prichard laughed heartily, though his face had flushed 
a little. 

“I plead guilty to the cocktails. It’s a bad habit, though 
very pleasant! But how did you know about that little 
shop girl? Dear little Mabel?” 

“I happened to see you meet her in High Street Ken¬ 
sington. Later in the evening I saw you coming out to¬ 
gether from the Oxford Street Cinema.” 

“And what the devil were you doing?” asked Prichard, 
rather huffed by this knowledge of his private movements. 

Julian smiled in his rather superior way. 

“I was doing a stunt on the White Slave traffic. Fol¬ 
lowing up a notorious scoundrel who entices girls to ruin. 
Rather on the same programme as yourself that night. A 
shop girl in Kensington, a cinema in Oxford Street. 
Strange coincidence!” 

“Look here,” said Prichard, angrily, “do you mean to 
suggest that I’m engaged in the White Slave traffic?” 

“No,” said Julian. “But if I were you I wouldn’t play 
about with pretty shop girls. When fellows like you leave 
them in the lurch—pretty boys like you, with crinkly hair 
and charming manners—out for a bit of fun and no harm 
meant—the other swine get their chance.” 

Prichard shifted off the bed, flung his cigarette into 
Julian’s water jug, and spoke coldly. 

“I’m afraid you’re getting a bit of a prig, Mr. Julian 
Perryam, reporter on The Week. I don’t mean any harm 
in the world to that girl Mabel, who’s perfectly respectable, 
dances like an angel, and has pretty little ways. Why 
shouldn’t I be friends with her? I’m afraid your work 
on The Week has given you a nasty mind, laddy.” 

“It has,” said Julian. 

“Besides, in any case, why shouldn’t I amuse myself if 
I want to? The kid knows what life is. She’s perfectly 
able to take care of herself. You don’t belong to the Vic¬ 
torian Age, do you?” 


Heirs Apparent 269 

Julian sat up in bed and kicked at his bedclothes. 

'‘Don’t talk abject rot, Prichard! We’re none of us able 
to take care of ourselves as much as you imagine. I used 
to think that sort of thing until—” 

“Until what?”asked Prichard, curiously. 

“Until something happened which made me know the 
bunk we talk about those things. We’re just puppets pulled 
by wires. We can’t control our own passions, minds, or 
hearts any better than our predecessors whom we pretend 
to despise.” 

Stokes Prichard whistled a little tune with a satiric note 
and seemed highly amused. 

“So our noble Benedick has met his Beatrice! Well, well, 
now, and to think he’s kept it a dark secret all this time! 
I suspect a lady of the name of Audrey, once of Somer¬ 
ville—that home of hockey-playing houris.” 

Julian laughed at this preposterous idea, and said, “Wide 
of the mark, as usual.” 

Then he killed a lonely mosquito on the wall above his 
bed and announced his desire for a night’s sleep. 

There was perhaps a plausible excuse for Stokes Prichard 
to suspect that Audrey Nye was the dark lady of Julian’s 
sonnets. She was certainly his best friend and he felt won¬ 
derfully safe with her, so that he had no sense of un¬ 
easiness, no need of caution in meeting her several times 
a week. It was a kindness to her, and Julian was con¬ 
scious of magnanimity (a pleasing sensation) in giving a 
good time now and then to “a nice kid,” as he called her, 
in his mind, who was deplorably poverty-stricken, but full 
of the most amazing pluck, and endowed with a sense of 
humour which enabled her to laugh at the downfall of the 
family fortunes owing to the mystical absurdities of her 
remarkable father. 

He had received several letters from her which had given 
him the general outline of her recent history in somewhat 
allegorical language. 

“I have discovered [she wrote in one of these] that the somewhat 
slight smattering of the arts and graces which I absorbed at Somer- 


270 Heirs Apparent 

ville, outside the more serious pursuit of hockey balls and attractive 
undergraduates (who eluded me), is merely a handicap in the game 
of real life. There is no market value in the critical appreciation 
of Beowulf, or Chaucer. My remarkable acquaintance with the 
minor poems of minor poets in the last decade cannot procure an 
A. B. C. lunch or provide coloured bows for the long pigtails of my 
little sisters. As it is obvious that I am called upon by dire neces¬ 
sity to maintain my entire family, including an out-of-work father, 
I am studyng shorthand and typewriting with a desperate industry 
which has already wrecked my physical beauty and undermined my 
moral strength.” 

In another letter she announced her engagement on three 
pounds a week as the bond slave of a Labour M.P. (one 
of her father’s old club boys in Bermondsey) who was sec¬ 
retary to a Labour Institute, and one of the chief organisers 
of social revolution in England. By name Herbert Thorn- 
dyke, 

“and rather a dear, with a heart of gold (with some alloy), a 
young wife who used to be a factory girl, a one-eyed view of 
English history, a sneaking admiration for Communism, a real love 
for the ‘down-trodden masses,’ and a firm belief that the Labour 
Party is the only hope of escape from another war in Europe. He 
works on this idea, swears at me like a bargee, quarrels with me 
over punctuation and the King’s English, but is rather fascinated 
and frightened by my girlish grace, and my patrician arrogance. I 
work from nine till six—an hour off for a cheap lunch—with four 
girls educated in the Bermondsey Board Schools and the Birkbeck 
Institute (far more efficient in every way), and my little nose is 
well down to the damned old grindstone. Sometimes the thought 
of Somerville with its elegance of pampered youth makes me shed 
tears on my blotting pad. The dreams I had of a gay glad life, all 
jazz and jubilation, gibber at me like mocking imps. I’m in the 
grey, drab, underworld of London. Suburbia closes about me with 
its shabby gentility, and arithmetical anxieties, and my evening 
frocks lie unused in my bottom drawer as fading relics of departing 
glory. All the same I get some fun out of it, and my father, who 
has been twice ‘sacked’ in the last three months for sheer incom¬ 
petence and absentminded mysticism, is so ridiculously happy that 
I haven’t the heart to blight him by outward gloom.” 

There was a postscript to this letter. 

“If you don’t come and see me soon I’ll never speak to you 
again.” 


Heirs Apparent 271 

Julian went to see her ten days after joining the staff of 
The Week. Ignorant of the whereabouts of that obscure 
suburb called Clapham Common, he took a taxi-cab to 
Clapham Junction, appalled by the dreadful squalor of its 
neighbourhood, only to find that he was three miles away 
from Audrey’s address, so that by the time he had arrived 
at a little villa in a row of jerry-built houses, on the south 
side of Clapham Common—not an unpleasant spot, he 
thought—the taximeter registered seven-and-sixpence. 

The door was opened by Celia, the younger of the two 
little pigtailed girls. She recognised Julian and greeted 
him with a cheerful “Hullo!” and the cautionary remark 
that if he wanted to stay to supper he would have to help 
wash up. 

“We only keep a day servant,” she explained. “Julia 
and I make the beds. Father gets in the way, Mother 
laments the hallowed past, and Audrey bosses everybody, 
because she’s got a job in the City.” 

She called out at the bottom of the stairs. 

“Audrey! A visitor to see you! Don’t bother to powder 
your nose.” 

Audrey came downstairs in a hurry, three steps at a 
time. 

“Julian! I thought you’d become too grand to visit the 
downtrodden Poor!” 

“I belong to the working classes myself,” said Julian. 

“What’s the latest scandal in The Weekf Or the last 
powerful article (portrait inset) by our noble Patriot?” 

They looked at each other, rather shyly, laughing at the 
hidden joke of things—the irony of life’s reality after rose- 
coloured dreams. 

Audrey hadn’t changed. She was the same girl who had 
walked with him from Oxford. The two little freckles were 
still on the bridge of her nose. 

She seemed to detect some change in him. Had that 
episode with Evelyn left its mark? 

“You’re looking older, Julian! 'Sickbed o’er with the 
pale cast of thought’ or something. Still groping for an 
answer to the little old riddle of life?” 


272 Heirs Apparent 

“I’ve found it,” said Julian. “Futility 1” 

Audrey shook her head. 

“Don’t you believe it! There’s a purpose somewhere. 
'Life is real, life is earnest.’ You have a talk with my 
Labour M.P. He’s firmly convinced that when his crowd 
gets into power there’s going to be a new heaven and a 
new earth. More wages for less work, shorter hours and 
more fun, idealised democracy and cheap culture.” 

“I hope you’re not getting bitten with that bug,” said 
Julian. 

Audrey confessed that she was swinging a little Left. 

“They are idealists, anyhow, poor dears!” she remarked. 
“Even if their ideals won’t work, it’s better than our supe¬ 
rior cynicism that all’s for the worst in the worst of all 
possible worlds.” 

They arranged to do a theatre, and Audrey was excited 
at the thought of putting on an evening frock again. She 
had only been to the theatre once since coming to London, 
and then stood for an hour outside the Pit. 

“Very tiring, but rather amusing! There was a boy next 
to me with long hair and a red tie who discussed Bernard 
Shaw in a friendly and amusing way. One really enjoys 
the play more after a little sacrifice.” 

It was while she was dressing that Mr. Nye came into 
the little drawing-room, overcrowded with the heavy fur¬ 
niture from the old vicarage at Hartland which Julian had 
seen carried out down the garden path. 

He greeted Julian with cordiality and good spirits. 

“Going to give my little girl a treat? That’s good of 
you, and she deserves it, by Jove! But for Audrey we 
should all be in Queer Street. I confess that so far I’m 
not a success in business life.” 

He was as boyish as usual, but shabby, with his brown 
hair all rumpled. Julian noticed that his cuffs were frayed, 
and that his collar was not too clean. But he was much 
amused by his successive failures to earn a living as a 
layman. 

“The fact is,” he said, laughing heartily, “I’m too hon¬ 
est. I got a job as a traveller in a History of England 


Heirs Apparent 273 

in forty-six parts. But I had to point out in all fairness 
to intending purchasers that certain chapters were grossly 
inaccurate. All the part about the Reformation, for in¬ 
stance, was just a tissue of lies. Thank Heaven, I didn’t 
sell a single copy! I only dipped into the pestilential work 
after I had accepted the commission. Very foolish of me!” 

Then he had canvassed the Kensington district on behalf 
of a safety razor. He had felt compelled to admit that it 
was of German manufacture. That had utterly ruined the 
sales. He had been dismissed after an angry scene with 
his employer—a German Jew who said, “Vot is de good of 
dragging in Zhermany? Made in Zhermany? Pah! It 
stink in de nostrils of English people. You are von big 
damn fool!” 

After that he had obtained the post of tutor to a delicate 
boy—Lord Banstead’s son—who wanted to be coached for 
the Diplomatic Service, most charming in many ways, but 
half an imbecile. He had written to the boy’s father point¬ 
ing out that young Vicary had no more chance of passing 
an examination than of jumping over the moon. The old 
man had promptly written back a crusty letter saying that 
his son did not desire to jump over the moon, but did need 
a capable coach. He had made other arrangements. 

“That was the loss of five pounds a week,” said Mr. 
Nye, rather regretfully. “But I couldn’t take the old boy’s 
money under false pretences. After twenty weeks of my 
coaching young Vicary would still have been as ignorant 
as the beasts of the field. He was utterly incapable of 
grasping the most elementary knowledge. Yet one day he 
will sit in the House of Lords and help to govern the 
country!” 

“It must be rather an anxious time for you,” said Julian, 
sympathetically. 

Mr. Nye was surprised at the remark. 

“Anxious ? Good gracious, no! I’ve never been so happy 
before. I walk on air, my dear lad. All the cares and 
troubles of life seem so utterly insignificant now that I 
have perfect faith and a continual consciousness of the pres¬ 
ence of God. Every day I am more and more convinced 


274 Heirs Apparent 

that we make most of our own troubles and that nothing 
matters if we leave all to the Divine Will. As old Words¬ 
worth says, ‘Getting and spending we lay waste our powers/ 
It’s not worth it. I know, I assure you, that if you have 
the love of God in your heart life becomes joyous beyond 
all words. The most squalid scene is spiritualised. The 
drabbest lives have a nobility and purpose. Even pain and 
suffering are priceless opportunities for getting nearer to 
the heart of Eternal Love. As for poverty, it is not only 
unharmful, but is the very salt of life, if one looks at it in 
the right way, with courage, a sense of humour, and a little 
faith. . . . You remember those lines in Herodotus?— 
‘Know that Poverty is the faithful friend of Greece. Vir¬ 
tue is of her company, Virtue, daughter of Wisdom and 
Good Governance/ My Lady Poverty! She is gracious 
to her children. She keeps their hearts simple. She gives 
them the vision of beauty. She makes them satisfied with 
very little. They are never cloyed. It is only in poverty 
that one finds one’s strength, one’s spirit, and the meaning 
of life, which is service and struggle, and love’s sacrifice. 

. . . That sounds awful mush, doesn’t it? I daren’t talk 
like this to Audrey, because she only jeers at me, but it’s 
true, all the same. At least it’s true to me.” 

Julian did not argue with him. Every word he said 
seemed to him utterly false, a complete illusion. He had 
seen no beauty, but only the abandonment and ignorance 
of beauty in those streets round Clapham Junction with 
their miserable little houses in monotonous rows, and their 
crowds of frowsy, anxious, harried women, with dirty 
disease-stricken brats, and haggard unemployed men, loung¬ 
ing at street corners outside ugly gin-palaces. There was 
no spiritual joy visible among those people, no strength 
or virtue, but only degradation, gloom, wretchedness, ill- 
health, nerve strain. And this ex-clergyman, with his inner 
fire of fantastic faith was walking in a dream, turning 
blind eyes to reality, and because of his carelessness forcing 
his daughter to keep his family and pay for his inability 
to hold a job. Julian, intolerant by instinct, though theo¬ 
retically tolerant, with the intellectual arrogance of his age 


Heirs Apparent 275 

in life, felt a rage in his heart against this smiling, cheer¬ 
ful, happy-go-lucky man. And yet his rage was touched 
with a little envy. Perhaps it was worth while walking in 
a dream if it kept one cheerful. What illusionists these 
Old People were! They were the heirs to Victorian roman¬ 
ticism. Only the postwar people like himself were realists, 
facing the truth, starkly and without the humbug of false 
glamour. 

He spoke a word or two to Audrey about that between 
the acts of “The White Headed Boy.” 

“Your father ought to have flourished sixty years ago, 
when Tennyson wrote 'The Idylls of the King’ and forgot 
that Arthur and his Court had no kind of sanitation, and 
seldom washed themselves.” 

“He’s the most absurd old darling I’ve ever met,” said 
Audrey, with a tolerant laugh for her parent’s absurdity. 
“Fifty years old, and more childish than I ever was when 
I sucked a 'dummy’ and said 'Goo!’ to my golliwog.” 

“How is it we’re so different?” asked Julian. “Were we 
born with a different kind of brain, by a process of evolu¬ 
tion ?” 

Audrey stared at the programme upside down. 

“Are you sure we are so different?” she asked, after a 
thoughtful pause. “I mean, haven’t we the same funny old 
instincts and jolly old impulses? My Labour Member is 
exactly like my Venerable Parent, only his particular fetish 
is Socialism instead of the Catholic Church. It’s his Faith 
in the illimitable possibility of human progress towards 
divine happiness and universal peace. What my father 
calls Love of God he calls the Brotherhood of Man.” 

“I agree about instincts and impulses,” said Julian, re¬ 
membering his conversation with Stokes Prichard, and 
other things. “Only we don’t give them fancy names. 
Besides your Labour Member is not one of us. I mean he 
doesn’t belong to the younger crowd. He still believes in 
things like Democracy and International Peace, and the 
essential goodness of the Average Man. I take it we don’t 
cherish any illusions about that kind of tosh?” 

Audrey laughed behind her programme. 


276 Heirs Apparent 

“I take it we haven’t a rag of illusion to keep us decent. 
Rather alarming, don’t you think?” 

So they chatted between the acts of “The White Headed 
Boy” which amused them vastly, because of its understand¬ 
ing of the young idea. 

“I’m a bit like the White Headed Boy myself,” Julian 
confessed with unaccustomed humility. “My people are 
always expecting me to do brilliant things which don’t 
seem to come off.” 

“You were frightfully brilliant in the Isis!” said Audrey. 

She listened with sympathy and amusement to his de¬ 
scriptions of dope-hunting, but, like Clatworthy and Stokes 
Prichard, believed that he was too good for The Week. The 
editorship of The London Mercury, she thought, would 
suit him better, a suggestion which flattered Julian’s vanity 
but did not destroy his sense of reality. 

“I might as well hope to be Prime Minister of England.” 

“Well, why not?” asked Audrey. “You wouldn’t make 
more of a mess than the present Old Man.” 

She put her hand on his sleeve. 

“Brilliant idea, Julian! Get into politics and lead the 
younger crowd. Say, ‘Come on, boys! It’s up to us! Out 
with the old deadheads. They’ve done enough damage.’ 
Why, Julian, with your beautiful profile and soulful eyes 
you will rally up every boy and girl in England, and have 
the old ladies saying their prayers for you.” 

“I should need them!” said Julian, unconsciously antici¬ 
pating the pathetic avowal of a future Prime Minister. 

He asked Audrey for the latest news of her brother 
Frank, and described his visit to the market garden and 
his meeting with the girl Nance. He was amused to hear 
that they had been “properly” married, owing to the moral 
pressure of Father Rivington. Audrey was amused also, 
not because of the marriage, but because of its effect on 
her father and mother. Both the Old People had been won¬ 
derfully bucked by the news, as though it made all the dif¬ 
ference between Frank’s chance of eternal salvation—and 
the other thing. 

“Amazing as it may seem,” said Audrey, “I feel a little 


Heirs Apparent 277 

comforted myself. The strength of conventional ideas even 
in the unconventionalists!” 

“One can’t violate the social code without asking for 
trouble/’ said Julian, with some hesitation. “The point is 
whether it’s worth risking the trouble.” 

“I wonder!” said Audrey, and they left the question 
there. 

After the play Audrey said, “What next?” and refused 
to envisage Clapham Common so early in the evening. Her 
old Somerville spirit had returned. She was reckless of 
the next day’s duties, with the nine o’clock tram to South¬ 
wark Bridge. 

“What about making a brilliant appearance in my 
rooms?” asked Julian. “Stokes Prichard is giving a little 
supper party to-night to Clatworthy and others. Let’s 
break in upon their unseemly mirth.” 

“Great Heaven!” said Audrey. “And the child has kept 
that up his sleeve all the evening, without a word! I’m 
dying to see some Oxford boys again, in spite of my lean¬ 
ings to the Left. To hear the King’s English as it is ‘spoke’ 
in Christ Church and Brazenose!” 

“Taxi!” said Julian, giving a shilling to the nearest com¬ 
missionaire. 


XXXII 


I T was not yet midnight when Julian and Audrey mounted 
the narrow twisted stairs of the old Georgian house in 
York Street, Adelphi, and the noise of a gramophone blared 
out with diabolical syncopation when Julian opened the 
door with his latchkey. 

In the little square of space which Stokes Prichard dig¬ 
nified by the name of “hall” a heap of coats lay on the floor, 
surmounted by a noble opera hat which was undoubtedly 
Clatworthy’s. Other hats, less distinguished, including one 
straw, occupied the four available pegs. 

“Full house,” said Julian, who had played poker in his 
rooms at Oxford. 

Stokes Prichard’s melodious voice was singing above the 
rasping music of the gramophone: 

“Father has a business strictly second hand, 

Ev’rything from toothpicks to a baby grand, 

Stuff in our department comes from father s store, 

Even things Fm wearing some one wore before.” 

General conversation loud enough to be heard above 
Stokes Prichard and the gramophone, and a high pitched 
laugh, suggested that the company was not in melancholy 
mood. 

“ ’Fraid I may be a bit of a nuisance,” said Audrey, with 
humility, though her eyes lighted at the sound of revelry. 
“Try it on them,” answered Julian. 

Audrey’s appearance in her evening frock of blue silk 
was certainly a success. Stokes Prichard switched off the 
gramophone, deftly concealed a bottle of whiskey behind 
a bowl of roses, and said, “Audrey Nye—by all that’s won¬ 
derful and delightful!” 

Clatworthy, curled up in the most comfortable arm chair, 
with both legs on the mantelpiece and a dissolute crease in 

278 


Heirs Apparent 279 

his evening shirt, disentangled himself with a shout of sur¬ 
prise and was the first to hold Audrey’s hand, which he 
raised to his lips with an air of exaggerated chivalry and 
the word “Carissima!” 

Two other young men not unknown to Audrey as dis¬ 
tinguished guests at the Somerville dances, relinquished 
their glasses and stood up for recognition. One was Paul 
Mervyn, a sandy-haired person with pink eyelashes and 
freckled face, generally known as “Mousey,” and slightly 
illuminated for a time by the reflected glory of his father, 
who was a General in that episode of recent history occa¬ 
sionally referred to as the Late Unmentionable. The other 
was Ralph Burnaby, a little elegant fellow with a somewhat 
delicate air which deceived those who insulted him rashly, 
not aware that he was Oxford’s second best light-weight. 
There was one other man in the room who stood in the 
background smiling through his eye glasses, fingering a 
pointed beard, and holding a briar pipe. It was Henry 
Caffyn, who had made a dramatic appearance in his 
pyjamas one night to protest against the interruption of 
his efforts to save the world. He was forgotten by the 
younger crowd who, at the sight of Audrey Nye, rushed 
into reminiscences of “priceless” hours they had enjoyed 
with her in a life which seemed incredibly remote. 

It was Mervyn of the pink eyelashes who blinked and 
laughed as he recalled a certain afternoon on the Cher when 
Audrey and he had overturned their canoe and waded 
ashore like drowned rats, to the indecent delight of Clat- 
worthy and Julian lying in their punt. 

It was little Burnaby who, in his mild, girlish voice, asked 
Audrey if she remembered that famous occasion when she 
rode pillion on his motor bike to Woodstock and he upset 
her gently and gracefully in a ditch, in order to avoid a 
char-a-banc full of trippers whose ribaldry was disgusting. 

It was Clatworthy who pooh-poohed these minor episodes 
of Audrey’s career by claiming the leading part in that his¬ 
toric scene at Maidenhead when this lady had dared him to 
climb up the chandelier and he had fallen under an ava¬ 
lanche of crystals. 


280 Heirs Apparent 

“Tragic night!” said Audrey, though she laughed with 
flushed cheeks at these exciting memories. “My last night 
of joyous youth! It seems a million years ago.” 

“Good Lord, yes!” said Clatworthy. “It belongs to an¬ 
other age. The Early Pleistocene.” 

It was exactly three months. 

“And what are you all doing?” asked Audrey. “How 
are you all getting on with that grim battle called Life? 
What sort of footprints are you making in the sands of 
time, and all that?” 

Burnaby claimed that he was making some pretty deep 
footprints. In fact he had put his feet into things rather 
too deep. He had quarrelled with his father over some 
question of money—a squalid argument—and he was now 
cut off without a shilling and earning his livelihood as a 
teacher of dancing at Hammersmith Broadway. It was 
amusing, but hard on the feet, and not profitable. 

Mervyn was in the same plight as regards his father. He 
had refused to go into the Army because he was an anti¬ 
militarist after reading “The Four Horsemen of the Apoca¬ 
lypse.” That had annoyed the old gentleman profoundly. 
Having sacrificed more lives than almost any other General 
in the War, he thought it only right that his son should live 
up to that noble tradition. Mervyn was now one of the 
unemployed. He had thought of emigrating to California 
and growing cocoanuts, or whatever they did grow in that 
part of the world. His knowledge of the classics would 
probably be very helpful in the culture of cocoanuts. 

“The fact is,” said Clatworthy, “that I am the only one 
of us to whom an Oxford education has been really neces¬ 
sary. As junior office boy in a department of the Foreign 
Office dealing with a mysterious state called Czecho-Slo- 
vakia—I haven’t found it on the map yet—my Oxford 
accent, and that insolence of manner which I acquired at 
Christ Church, are what the people of our caste call a sine 
qua non, which being interpreted, dear children, means 
‘without which no.’ It has an impressive effect with foreign 
visitors, journalists, like our friend Julian here, who quail 
before my arrogant eye, and everybody’s satisfied that Brit- 


Heirs Apparent 281 

ish Foreign Policy is still sinister in its intelligence and 
Machiavellian in its subtlety.” 

Audrey laughed, and threw a cushion at Clatworthy. 

“Johnny! Our poor old foreign policy will be wrecked 
if ever you become an Ambassador and make one of your 
monkey faces at the wrong time. It will plunge us into war 
as sure as fate. Fancy its effect on a German Junker!” 

It was at this stage in the conversation that Henry Caffyn 
emerged from the background. 

“Having been completely forgotten, as becomes old age 
sitting in the corner while youth plays, I propose to slip 
away before pillow fighting begins. As a pacifist I think 
discretion is the better part of valour. But before I go I 
should like to be introduced to this lady.” 

Stokes Prichard apologised. Julian apologised. Clat¬ 
worthy apologised. In the excitement of Audrey’s appear¬ 
ance they had completely forgotten their distinguished 
visitor. 

“Miss Audrey Nye. Mr. Henry Caffyn.” 

“The most famous lady in Oxford, the most famous critic 
in the world,” said Clatworthy, in his best diplomatic style. 

Henry Caffyn took Audrey’s hand, and his eyes twinkled. 

“We two famous people must put our heads together. 
I’m trying to get hold of the younger crowd to shape things 
on a new plan—an International League of Youth, more 
powerful than the poor old League of Nations, and less 
bureaucratic. The Young Idea—taking root, growing, 
spreading, flowering over the graves of old traditions, old 
cruelties, old follies. You seem to have Oxford at your 
service, Miss Nye. Won’t you help me?” 

Audrey laughed and blushed. She knew Henry Caffyn’s 
work, and could recite some of his poems, which she adored. 

“I’d be glad to help,” she said, “but the young idea is only 
the old idea in a different kind of slang.” 

Henry Caffyn looked at her in a rather startled way. 

“I wonder if you’re right,” he said. “If so, I’m all 
wrong.” 

He raised her hand to his lips in a courtly old-fashioned 
way. 


282 Heirs Apparent 

“Anyhow, I’m on the side of youth.” 

He waved his hand to the little party of men. 

“Thanks for letting me sit and listen,” he said. “It made 
me forget my grey beard.” 

After the door was shut upon him, Audrey asked a ques¬ 
tion rather breathlessly. 

“What’s he here for? Where did you find him?” 

Stokes Prichard explained. 

“Our row prevents him from working. He comes down 
and listens while we yap together. Also he rather likes our 
whiskey.” 

“He’s studying us,” said Julian, “as remarkable specimens 
of the younger crowd. God knows what he makes of us.” 

They forgot him again, as youth forgets old age which 
is always a nuisance in the room. 

It was two o’clock before Julian put Audrey in a taxicab 
and paid the driver in advance for his fare to Clapham. 
Clatworthy, Burnaby, Mervyn and Prichard stood round 
the cab and raised a cheer as it departed. Audrey waved to 
them until she turned the corner into John Street. Then 
Stokes Prichard and Julian returned to their rooms with 
laughter at the sight of Clatworthy walking arm in arm with 
Mervyn and Burnaby, the noble opera hat at the back of his 
head, and his legs a little unsteady because the fresh air 
was overstimulating after a good dinner with Veuve 
Clicquot, three glasses of Johnny Walker, and the reminder 
of his hopeless love for Audrey. 


XXXIII 



T six o’clock next morning Julian was awaxened by 


-/A. an angel twanging on a harp string. At least that was 
what he dreamed at the time of waking, and for a moment 
the angel turned into Audrey playing a guitar at the end 
of a punt. But after these agreeable visions he decided that 
it was not a harp string or a guitar, but an electric bell 
ringing insistently in the square space which Prichard called 
the hall. He was inclined to ignore it. It was probably 
some telegram from the news editor of The Week sending 
him off to interview an actress or directing him to track 
down the latest scandal about a motion picture star. Or it 
might be the milkman, demanding last night’s can. Or it 
might be that the damned bell had fused its wire. 

After two minutes of that penetrating ping-ping-ping, 
Julian uttered the most lurid oath he could remember, put 
a dressing gown over his pyjamas, and opened the door. 
He gave an exclamation of profound astonishment when he 
saw Janet standing there. 

She was in evening dress, the one with forget-me-nots on 
a white gauze, with a light cloak over her shoulders, and 
she looked dead beat, with black lines under her eyes and 
bright spots of red on very pale cheeks. 

“Hullo, Julian,” she said. “You do take some waking, 
don’t you ?” 

She spoke in her usual slangy way, but with a kind of 
desperate effort to be true to form. She swayed a little as 
she stood there in the doorway and put the tips of her 
fingers to her forehead for a moment. 

“Where have you come from?” asked Julian. “And what 
on earth have you been doing?” 

“That’s all right, old boy. Don’t ask too many ques¬ 
tions while you keep me waiting on the doorstep. Have you 
got a sofa for me to sleep on? I’m dog tired.” 


283 


284 Heirs Apparent 

She went into the sitting room, let the cloak drop from 
her shoulders, flopped into the arm chair and sat there like 
a crumpled Columbine, with her head drooping. 

“Great Scott!” said Julian, scared by her appearance. 
“You look as if you’d been out all night. What would the 
mater say if she saw you like this?” 

Janet jerked up her head in a frightened way. 

“The mater mustn’t know,” she said, rather breathlessly. 
“As a matter of fact, Julian, I’m relying on your brotherly 
comradeship. I told the mater I was spending the night 
with the Nicklin girl. Don’t give me away!” 

“Where did you spend the night?” asked Julian. 

Janet hesitated, and a pale colour crept into her cheeks. 

“Cyril and I with one or two others—including Evelyn 
Iffield—went to a night club in Soho and danced until day¬ 
light. Very merry and bright and all that!” 

“And do you mean to say Cyril left you to come here 
alone ?” 

“Hardly that,” said Janet. “To tell you the truth—” 

She was silent, and the bright spots of colour faded from 
her cheeks. 

“Well?” asked Julian. 

She looked at him strangely, as if considering how he 
would take the truth if she told him, and if she should tell. 

“Cyril and I left the crowd before the show was over. 
I went to his rooms in Duke Street. It was three o’clock 
then.” 

“Almighty God!” said Julian, not in blasphemy. 

He felt a sudden chill creep over him. A sense of 
calamity beyond all words stunned him in the presence of 
this child who was his sister. 

“What happened?” he asked, harshly. 

Janet shrugged her shoulders, bare above her gauzy frock. 

“We had a bit of a scene . . . and after that a row. It 
was my fault, mostly. I shouldn’t have gone with him. 
But all the same—-he was a damned beast.” 

She suddenly put her face down in her hands and cried 
with a passion of tears. 

Julian lit a cigarette and stared at her gloomily. With 


Heirs Apparent 285 

her bare neck and arms in her little flowered frock she 
looked to him like a child crying over a broken doll, as he 
had seen her when they were in the nursery together. This 
thought struck him poignantly, with a kind of stab. He 
ought to have looked after her more. He had believed too 
easily that she was old enough to look after herself, and 
had jeered at his mother’s anxiety because of Janet’s revolt 
against the old proprieties and prohibitions, as he had 
jeered at them in his own case. He felt a sense of mad 
rage against Cyril Buckland. He would go and smash his 
face in, the damned scoundrel! The dirty skunk, to play 
about with a girl like Janet, and tempt her to his rooms, 
and behave like a beast. He’d kill the fellow . . . 

He went down on his knees and put his arms round his 
sister, clasping her tight. 

“Janet, old girl! Tell me—for God’s sake—what hap¬ 
pened in Cyril’s rooms?” 

She gave a little moan and put her forehead against his 
shoulder. 

“I’m tired,” she said, “and my head is splitting.” 

He clenched his hands and whispered to her. 

“Janet! Never mind that now. Tell me. That brute 
Cyril? Was he drunk or something?” 

Janet gave a restless movement as he held her. 

“It wasn’t his fault altogether,” she said in a low voice. 
“I asked for trouble, all right. It was my idea that I should 
go to his rooms. Only I didn’t think—” 

“Oh, Hell!” said Julain. “Oh, Hell!” 

He unclasped his arms from about her and paced up and 
down the room in a frenzy of fear and rage. 

Janet sat still, mopping her eyes with a little lace hand¬ 
kerchief. Presently she spoke in a weary voice which was 
almost fretful. 

“I suppose you couldn’t make me a cup of something hot? 
Tea or something. I feel a bit faint, and my head is awful.” 

“I’ll make you some coffee,” said Julian. 

He went into the little kitchen next to Prichard’s bed¬ 
room, but when he had made the coffee and come back to 
the sitting room he found Janet asleep in the arm chair, with 


286 Heirs Apparent 

her head drooping sideways and her hands lying limp in 
her lap. He did not wake her, but sat opposite in the other 
chair, with the coffee getting cold on the table. He took 
a sip of it, because he felt chilled to the lips. Then he 
crept into the passage and came back with his overcoat, 
which he laid lightly over his sister. She stirred a little, 
and gave a long quivering sigh. 

She reminded him frightfully of some of those girls he 
had seen when he was doing the dope story, dead white, 
with dark lines under their eyes. This idea shocked him so 
horribly that he groaned aloud and as though disturbed by 
it, Janet moved one of her hands and gave a little moan. 

Julian sat forward in his chair with his head between his 
hands, motionless. A thousand horrible thoughts racked 
his brain, and over and over again he cursed Cyril Buckland 
with a murderous hate in his heart which seemed to burn 
there. The image of Evelyn came into his mind and added 
to his torment. How could he blame Janet, or even Cyril— 
damn him!—when he was still rotten with passion for 
Evelyn Iffield, ready to go off the deep end with her, if she 
so much as beckoned him with the tip of a finger? Sup¬ 
posing Evelyn had come to his rooms—without Stokes 
Prichard in the place? Would he have shown the door to 
her with a moral sentiment? No. He couldn’t lie to him¬ 
self like that! He would have trembled in every limb with 
passionate joy, made a fool of himself to the ultimate limit. 
Evelyn had made one of the party with Janet. That thought 
nagged at him. She wasn’t fretting because he had been 
warned off by her husband. She had heaps of friends to 
fall back on for comradeship. She didn’t care a jot be¬ 
cause he was broken and alone, with all his light gone clean 
out. He could see her at that night club in Soho, with her 
laughing eyes, her grace of body, putting a spell upon any 
poor devil who came within her orbit—even the waiters! 
Probably she had lied to Major Iffield, as she used to lie 
when they had their secret meetings—and pretended that 
she was staying the night in town with friends. Well, it 
wouldn’t be altogether a lie. She would have breakfast 
with them and sleep till lunch time. All that was permissible 


Heirs Apparent 287 

in the code of the younger crowd. A little harmless de¬ 
ception towards the Old People for the sake of liberty. He 
had approved of that himself. It seemed reasonable. But 
now, with his sister sleeping there in the chair opposite, like 
a little broken bird, after an episode which made his blood 
run cold, it did not seem so right. It seemed hideously and 
damnably dangerous. Perhaps they were all wrong in this 
idea of scrapping the old conventions. Perhaps the old 
Victorian ideas of life, the old stuffy notions of chaperons 
and safeguards, were not so absurd after all. Anyhow 
things had gone pretty wrong with Janet and himself. 
What would his father and mother say ? He would have to 
tell them something. It would kill them if anything hap¬ 
pened to Janet. His father worshipped her very shadow, 
followed her about with his eyes as though every move¬ 
ment she made were music to him, and every smile she gave 
him a gift of grace. He had pampered her since she had 
lain in her cradle, and had never given her an angry word, 
so that she had been able to wheedle anything she wanted 
out of him. He would crumple up if he knew that Janet 
had gone wrong. 

Julian sat there with his head between his hands and 
the lines of his face hardening as though something of his 
youth had passed. Once he felt his fingers wet, though he 
was not aware of tears. Presently he dozed off, in an 
uneasy sleep with troubled dreams. 

It was Stokes Prichard who waked the brother and sister,, 
before the old woman came in to cook the breakfast. He 
still had that habit of early rising for a long and leisurely 
toilet which had annoyed Julian when they shared rooms at 
Oxford. That morning he came searching for his cigarette 
case, in a blue silk kimono over his pyjamas. He came in 
whistling a tune which suddenly stopped as he saw Julian 
and Janet in the opposite arm chairs—Julian with his head 
on his chest and his hands between his knees, Janet in her 
crumpled frock, like a Columbine after the masque, with her 
little white face lolling sideways on the arm of the chair, 
and her honey-coloured hair half uncoiled, and Julian’s coat 
tossed on one side. 


288 Heirs Apparent 

Stokes Prichard looked as though he couldn’t believe his 
eyes. He stared incredulously from Julian to Janet. He 
had seen Julian go to bed, heard him through the thin wall 
drop his boots on the floor, and fling himself between the 
sheets. How on earth had this pretty girl come into his 
rooms, this amazingly pretty girl, like the Sleeping Beauty 
in the fairy tale, like the girl of whom he had dreamed a 
thousand times between waking and sleeping, but had never 
met in the living world? 

He took a pace backwards, meaning to creep out of the 
room, but knocked against the table on which was a cup of 
coffee. That noise wakened Julian with a start. He sat 
up in his chair and said, “What’s the matter?” 

Janet stirred, raised herself slightly, opened her eyes wide, 
and said, “No. We mustn’t, Cyril! Please, please!” 

She was still dreaming for a moment. But then she sat 
up, so that Julian’s overcoat slipped onto the floor. 

“Where am I?” she asked, vaguely. 

“It’s all right,” said Julian. 

Janet remembered. A wave of colour flushed her face 
and neck, and a look of shame, and fear, and misery crept 
into her eyes. 

It was then that Stokes Prichard spoke. 

“Sorry, old man,” he said to Julian, “I had no idea you 
had company. I was looking for a cigarette.” 

He smiled in his most amiable way, as though it were the 
most natural thing in the world to find Julian with a young 
lady at this hour of the morning. 

Julian stood up and stretched himself. He felt stiff in 
every bone. He was also conscious that he would have to 
lie very rapidly to Stokes Prichard. 

“This is my sister Janet,” he said. 

He thought hard for a plausible tale. 

“She missed the last train home—after a little binge in 
town—and sought sanctuary here at a late hour when you 
were sleeping like a babe.” 

“Good Heavens!” said Stokes Prichard, “and you asked 
her to sleep in the most uncomfortable chair that ever came 
out of the Tottenham Court Road?” 


Heirs Apparent 289 

“I’m afraid we talked rather late, and fell asleep,” said 
Janet. 

Julian marvelled at the way she pulled herself together. 
She answered Prichard’s little courtesies—he behaved at 
once with his usual gallantry—as though she were in a per¬ 
fectly normal state of mind, though Julian, watching her, 
could see that she was suffering. There was a look of pain 
in her eyes, and more than once she put her hand up to her 
head as though it still ached. But she smiled when Stokes 
Prichard deplored the fact that he had not been able to 
offer her his bed while he slept on the sofa in the sitting 
room, and laughed when he hinted that the old woman 
who “did” for them would be vastly surprised to find her at 
the breakfast table. 

“I’m afraid it will lead to scandal in York Street, 
Adelphi!” she exclaimed. 

“Girls are wonderful actresses!” thought Julian. “How 
easily they lie and hide their feelings!” 

Janet retired to his room to “wash and brush up” while 
Prichard arrayed himself in his most exquisite lounge suit, 
obviously excited by her presence in the next room. Once 
indeed he came back to the sitting room to say a word to 
Julian who was tidying up the relics of the last night’s party. 

“I say, old boy, congratulations on your sister! She’s 
marvellous. The most exquisite rose of England’s June!” 

He could not refrain from his infinite capacity for poetical 
quotation. 

“She had a brother, and a tender father 
And she was loved, but not as others are 
From whom we ask return of love—but rather 
As one might love a dream; a phantom fair 
Of something exquisitely strange and rare —•" 

“That’s all right,” said Julian. “Go and finish dressing 
and stop spouting that bilge, for Heaven’s sake—!” 

The old woman came and laid the breakfast things and 
cooked the usual meal. 

“There will be three for breakfast,” said Julian. “My 
sister.” 


290 Heirs Apparent 

The old woman winked heavily, and gave a witchlike 
laugh. 

“Some sisters have all the luck,” she said, mysteriously. 
“When I was a young girl I’d more brothers than I could 
count on both hands. The last young gentleman in these 
rooms—” 

“Get on with your work and clear out!” said Julian, 
sternly. 

“Oh, all right, dearie!” said Mrs. Sullivan. “I can turn 
a blind eye all right, and no tales told.” 

When Janet reappeared, still in her evening frock but 
with her hair tidy again and a less crumpled look, the old 
woman greeted her amiably. 

“Good morning, Missy. Ain’t you feeling cold with them 
pretty bare arms? Shall I light the fire for you?” 

“Well, it would be a good idea,” said Janet, graciously. 

She avoided Julian’s eyes. He was conscious of that, and 
he watched her, wondering whether he had not exaggerated 
his fears for her, whether his agonising thoughts had not 
been rather foolish. Her usual colour had returned—al¬ 
most. The dark lines had faded out. She looked fresh 
and childlike. Only a slight nervousness of movement, and 
a drooping of her eyelids, revealed anything unusual in her 
state of mind. She listened to Prichard’s prattle at the 
breakfast table with apparent pleasure, and pleased him 
enormously by a little compliment about his taste in decorat¬ 
ing the rooms. He was later than ever for his office, and 
did not depart until well after half past ten, after a promise 
from Janet that she would come to tea one day. 

“A nice boy,” said Janet, when he had gone, “but if he’d 
stayed ten minutes longer I should have screamed.” 

The brother and sister were silent for a while. Julian 
dropped the fag end of his cigarette into his coffee cup and 
stirred it with a spoon. He was not thinking of that. He 
was wondering what on earth he could say to Janet to get 
things straight with her, to know the worst, to face<up to 
it. It was more difficult to talk of things like that in the 
cold light of day. 


Heirs Apparent 291 

“Look here,” he said, slowly, “about last night. What 
are we going to do about it ?” 

Janet did not answer for a moment. She sat there with 
tightened lips and a little frown on her forehead. 

Then she raised her head and looked into Julian’s eyes. 

“We’re going to do nothing about it,” she said, with a 
little quiver in her voice. “I rely on your loyalty, Julian. 
That’s why I came to you. If you say a word about it to 
a living soul I’ll never speak to you again. I’ll cut you 
dead in the street.” 

“We can’t leave it like that,” said Julian. “It’s impos¬ 
sible. I’ll go and bash that fellow’s brains out, for one 
thing.” 

“Rot!” said Janet. “Don’t talk melodrama, Julian. I 
made a little fool of myself with him, I egged him on, we 
had a scene together, and I got frightened and did a bunk. 
That’s all there is in it.” 

“I believe you’re lying,” said Julian, in a low voice. 
“Why did you weep your heart out last night?” 

Janet answered with a laugh that sounded harshly. 

“Nerves, old boy! One of those nerve storms that affect 
the weaker sex in times of emotion.” 

Julian was silent again, staring at the breakfast things, 
and Janet watched him out of the corners of her eyes. 

“Well,” he said at last, “I hope to Heaven you’re telling 
the truth. You’ve given me the scare of my life.” 

He rose from the table and went to the window and looked 
down to the passing traffic. Then he turned suddenly and 
spoke with passion. 

“Look here, for God’s sake, let’s talk straight. I’ve been 
seeing something of life lately on that vile rag—the seamy 
side. I’ve seen girls like you drugging themselves to death 
and leading a life of hell, because they made one false step, 
or slipped downhill before they knew what was happening. 
■It’s so damned easy, Janet, for girls like you. Don’t think 
I’m talking like a prig or anything. I’m not a saint. I’m 
ready to go off the deep end any old time! I’ll admit that. 
But Pm thinking of the pater and mater, for once. It 


292 Heirs Apparent 

doesn’t matter what I do so much. I’m a man. But if 
anything happened to you it would kill them.” 

Janet looked at him mockingly. She had tears in her eyes, 
but there was an angry light in them. 

“You are talking like a prig. It doesn’t matter so much 
what you do—you’re a man! Oh, very nice! But where 
does the girl come in? I mean your girl. You can play 
about as much as you think fit, but if I make a little fool 
of myself your saintly soul is horrified, and the whole world 
is outraged. I don’t look at things in that way. What’s 
wrong for the man is wrong for the woman.” 

“I agree,” said Julian. “But that doesn’t make things 
any better, when they both go wrong.” 

He waved aside the argument, and asked a series of 
jerky questions, angrily, anxiously. 

“That fellow Cyril? That damned brute? What’s he 
playing at? Does he want to marry you? If so, why 
don’t you get engaged and put things straight? Surely it 
must be one thing or the other ?” 

“It’s the other,” said Janet. “He’s only been amusing 
himself with a silly little schoolgirl. So tempting and sweet! 
So fresh and innocent! He hasn’t the thought of marriage 
in his head.” 

“The swine!” said Julian, fiercely. 

“And so,” said Janet, “I’m in the cart, little brother. 
Well, serves me right.” 

She broke down again, and wept a little, but not much. 

“You had better fetch me a taxi,” she said, presently. 
“I’ve got to go to that Nicklin girl to establish an alibi. 
Tell the mater I’m staying there for a day or two.” 

In the taxi she put out her hand through the window and 
touched Julian’s sleeve. 

“Don’t fret. I’ll pull through all right. And remember— 
I rely on your honour. As a pal and a brother. Not a 
word to a living soul. Promise ?” 

“I promise,” he said. “But play the game, old girl.” 

As the cab went away he saw Janet put her hands up to 
her face, and something in her eyes caused his heart to 
give a kind of turn. 


XXXIV 


H ENRY CAFFYN, that eccentric genius who lived on 
the floor above the rooms which Julian shared with 
Stokes Prichard, knocked at the door a few evenings after 
Janet’s visit, and invited the two young men to come up¬ 
stairs for coffee and conversation. 

“There’ll be a crowd of young fellows,” he said. “It’s 
my Saturday reception of international youth. They like 
to call on their old uncle and hear the words of wisdom 
which fall from his withered lips. But I learn more from 
them than they do from me! They’re providing material 
for my book on ‘The Coming Generation.’ Will you join 
them ?” 

Stokes Prichard winked at Julian and answered the invi¬ 
tation with polite sarcasm. 

“Very kind of you, sir. I’m sure Perryam and I will be 
glad to contribute a chapter to your great work. I suggest 
the title ‘Oxford Types,’ or ‘The Noblest Specimen of In¬ 
tellectual Aristocracy.’ ” 

Henry Caffyn’s eyes twinkled, though he answered with 
his usual gravity. 

“Exactly! I’m keeping other types for my chapter on 
‘The Snob Instinct, and Intensive Training in the Art of 
Ignorance.’ Well, nine o’clock, then?” 

“Delighted!” said Stokes Prichard, “especially as I am 
strangely at a loose end this evening* owing to the infidelity 
of friendship.” 

He alluded to a change of plans on the part of Clatworthy 
who had cancelled a dinner party owing to his father being 
ill. 

Julian also accepted Henry Caffyn’s invitation. As it hap¬ 
pened it was necessary, or at least desirable, to go out that 
evening. A letter had come to him that morning in a hand¬ 
writing which had caused him to draw a quick breath and 

293 


294 Heirs Apparent 

hide the letter in his breast pocket until he could get back to 
his bedroom from the breakfast table and read it without 
Prichard’s observation and innuendoes. It was from Evelyn 
Iffield—just a few words. 

“I am coming up to town this morning and will call round at 
your rooms this evening, if I can slip away from dull friends. About 
ten o’clock. There are things I want to say. So try to be alone, 
and, in any case, be in! 

“Your unforgetful friend, 

“Evelyn I.” 

Julian read these words with a sense of excitement which 
made him pale. They were the first lines he had had from 
her since coming up to town, and he was glad but alarmed to 
get them. He was afraid of her visit. He was a coward at 
the thought of seeing her again. It would reopen his wound, 
uselessly. It would bring him again under the spell of her 
beauty and enticement when it was far better to put her out 
of his mind and heart. For her it was nothing. She would 
tease him, mock at him, play with him, and thoroughly amuse 
herself. For him it was bitterness and futile emotion. She 
wanted to slip away from dull friends! That was her only 
reason for coming to these rooms. It would be a little less 
dull to stroke his hand, and say, “Why can’t we be friends ?” 
and to fondle him a little and then call him “foolish boy.” 
. . . He thought of sending a note round to the address on 
her letter and saying, “Very sorry, I shall be out this eve¬ 
ning.” He was quite certain that he would save himself 
humiliation and much foolish heart trouble if he did that. 
But he didn’t. The day had slipped away and he hadn’t writ¬ 
ten that note, though several times he had gone to his writing 
desk to do so. . . . It would be pleasant to see her again, 
to hear her laugh, to feel the touch of her hands, to take the 
kiss which she would certainly offer him. Why not, after 
all ? Why funk it ? Why not take two kisses instead of one ? 
Why be discreet and prudent, and priggish? . . . Many 
times the thought of Janet answered those questions. He 
had raged and wept because she had gone to Cyril’s rooms. 


Heirs Apparent 295 

He had talked high morality to his sister, and had been 
shocked to his inmost soul because of her abominable adven¬ 
ture with that brute Cyril. Now Evelyn was coming to his 
rooms, unless he sent that message and said, “Don’t come!” 
High morality would go to pieces if she preferred other¬ 
wise. She had something to say to him. Supposing she 
said, “I’ve done with Major Iffield—that dull husband of 
mine. You can have me if you want me, Julian!” What 
principle had he, what law of faith or honour, to resist such 
an offer as that? None. Absolutely none! All that talk 
with Janet was sheer insincerity, monstrous hypocrisy, if 
the position were reversed in his own case. Better send the 
note. Better send it. And yet, it would be joy to see her 
again, and he wanted to see her. 

So he was torn by two opposite forces in conflict, pulling 
against each other while his personality and will power 
seemed to look on and wait for the decision. 

Henry Caffyn’s invitation gave him another chance. He 
could go upstairs with Stokes Prichard and stay there till 
midnight. Evelyn would come and ring the bell. Three 
times, perhaps. Then she would go away, thinking that he 
had not received her note. Yes, that would be the simplest 
way, and the best. So he thought it out and decided, while 
Stokes Prichard was chatting with Henry Caffyn. 

“Do we dress?” asked Julian. 

“Good Lord, no!” 

Henry Caffyn laughed at the idea. 

“My visitors mostly sleep in their clothes! At least some 
of them look as though they do—one or two Russians and a 
Czecho-Slovakian artist—a young genius!—and de Berthen- 
court, the French journalist.” 

He sloped away, fingering his pointed beard, and said, 
“See you later, boys.” 

They left their rooms at nine o’clock and as the door 
clicked behind him, Julian half regretted his decision and 
was filled with compunction because in an hour or so Evelyn 
would be standing there getting no answer to her ring. 
Rather caddish! Well, better that than to play the fool 


296 Heirs Apparent 

with a girl who was only touching his nerves with her finger 
tips to make them jump, as she played Chopin for its subtle 
touch of emotion. 

A young man with pale blue eyes behind gold-rimmed 
glasses, and close-cropped head above a Saxon-looking face, 
stood in the passage outside, raised a good looking bowler, 
and said, in a strong foreign accent: 

“Pardon me, gentlemen, can you direct me to Mr. Henry 
Caff yn ?” 

“The floor above,” said Prichard. “Number Ten.” 

The young man thanked them ceremoniously, and went 
ahead upstairs. 

Stokes Prichard turned to Julian and raised his eyebrows. 

“German!” he said in a low voice. “I don’t think I’ll pro¬ 
ceed on this adventure. ‘They’ll cheat you yet, those Junk¬ 
ers !’ ” 

“The German idealist, probably,” said Julian. “I dare¬ 
say there’s one, and Henry Caffyn has found him out, and 
keeps him as a tame pet.” 

He spoke ironically, having no passion of hate against the 
former enemy, but complete indifference on the subject of 
Germany. 

“Well,” said Prichard, “I’m not going to shake hands with 
the rasper. He may have killed my- brother.” 

“Your brother may have killed his,” answered Julian. “It 
was about even on the Western Front, I’m told.” 

They went upstairs and found Henry Caffyn’s door open 
and several young men of strange appearance hanging un¬ 
pleasant looking hats of the dump variety on vacant pegs. 
Beyond, in the big room that corresponded to their own 
sitting-room, Henry Caffyn himself stood in the centre of a 
group of young men and women so alarming in aspect that 
Stokes Prichard looked really frightened and turned 
abruptly, with the obvious intention of beating an immedi¬ 
ate retreat. 

“Don’t rat!” said Julian. “They look fierce, but Pm sure 
they’re tame.” 

It was quite easy to make a remark of that kind without 
being overheard, because an incessant tumult of conversation 


Heirs Apparent 297 

and laughter poured out of Henry Caffyn’s rooms. It was 
conversation in several languages, among which Julian’s 
quick ear picked out English, French, and German, and one 
dominant unknown tongue, which he guessed was Russian. 
Henry Caffyn himself seemed able to speak all four with 
ease and fluency, and his Don Quixote-looking head, with 
pointed white beard and upturned moustache, rose above all 
other people in the room and seemed the centre of its life. 
Julian noticed how the throng eddied round him, and how 
eagerly some of them pressed forward to get a word with 
him, or to listen to his talk. The ladies were the most alarm¬ 
ing to Stokes Prichard, though he looked askance at two 
or three young men with black, brooding eyes and lank hair 
—Russians, undoubtedly—and others of English type, posi¬ 
tively shocking to his soul because they wore trousers creased 
in the wrong places, collars at least an inch too high, and 
ties that would have caused a shudder in the High at Ox¬ 
ford if exhibited by an undergraduate. Some of the ladies 
were beautiful, and some of them elegant, but here and there 
were types of masculine femininity—young women with 
short hair not even “bobbed” but brushed like a boy’s— 
who looked aggressively intellectual and almost appallingly 
plain. It was they who had scared the sensitive soul of 
Stokes Prichard. He was soothed, however, when Henry 
Caffyn took him by the hand, led him to the prettiest girl 
in the room—a dark-haired girl like an Irish colleen—and 
said, “Miss Leigh, here’s a young fellow who plays ragtime 
like an inspired monkey. For goodness’ sake convert him to 
the melody of Mozart, which you play like an angel.” 

It was Francine Leigh, the pianist, and Julian was glad 
of Prichard’s luck. That would keep him quiet for a long 
time. As far as Julian was concerned, he desired no con¬ 
verse with any of these people, pretty or plain—his mind 
was obsessed with the thought that Evelyn might be on her 
way to his rooms—but he had to make himself civil when 
Henry Caffyn introduced him, with a few genial words, to 
a young man with a high forehead, short nose, and aggres¬ 
sive-looking face, who wore a ready-made lounge suit and a 
green tie. 


298 Heirs Apparent 

“Thorndyke, this is my neighbour—below-stairs, Julian 
Perryam. A quiet fellow, searching for the truth of things, 
I believe. Tell him what Labour proposes to do when it gets 
into power and forget its internecine strife. He’s against 
you, I fancy, so you ought to interest each other.” 

Julian was not in the least interested either in the future 
of Labour or in Herbert Thorndyke. He was wondering 
how many times Evelyn would ring at the bell downstairs 
before going away and despising him for an ill-mannered 
pup. But he asked himself vaguely where he had heard the 
name of Thorndyke before. The man to whom he had been 
introduced gave him the key. 

“Aren’t you a friend of Miss Audrey Nye?” He spoke 
with a slight Cockney accent, and Julian noticed afterwards 
that he had occasional difficulty with his aspirates. 

“Yes. Do you know her?” 

Thorndyke laughed in a high, thin voice. 

“I see her every day. She does a bit of typing for me. 
I’m the secretary of the Labour Institute at Bermondsey, in 
the time I can spare from the House. I used to know her 
father when he ran the boys’ club in the Walworth Road. 
I was one of his club boys.” 

It was the loss of the “h” to House that hurt Julian’s ear 
most. But he checked the snobbishness of his instinct by 
the thought that this fellow was a Member of Parliament 
and one of the leaders of the Labour Party at an age cer¬ 
tainly not fifteen years older than Julian. “In fifteen years 
or fifty I shan’t have the ability this fellow has won by 
grinding work,” thought Julian, with unaccustomed humility. 
“Probably he knows a hundred times as much as I do 
about world history, books, and present-day facts.” 

“She’s a wonder, is Miss Nye,” said Thorndyke. “I 
like her sense of humour. Of course I get pretty rattled 
when she corrects my English style, and still more when she 
contradicts me flatly about the things I really know, such 
as the relations of Capital and Labour. But we get on 
splendidly, although I work her like a dog. Not that I want 
to, but there’s a lot to do, and it’s my job to get it done.” 


Heirs Apparent 299 

Julian looked at his aggressive jaw and his deep-set eyes 
—the eyes of a fanatic, in spite of a humorous light in them 
—and he thought that this man would get most jobs done, 
if he set his mind to them. 

“Who are all these people ?” asked Julian. “What’s their 
purpose in life?” He didn’t want to know. He was won¬ 
dering whether, after all, he had not better “chuck” this 
party and wait for Evelyn on the floor below. . . . No. 
That would be pretty weak, after making up his mind! 

Thorndyke glanced round the room and laughed. 

“This is the International League of Youth,” he said. 
“These are the leaders of the Future, the heralds of the New 
Idea. The United States of Europe. World Peace. Broth¬ 
erly Love between French and Germans. Good wages for 
honest toil, no poor and no rich, a reign of justice, liberty, 
bath rooms, and higher education! Well, I wish them luck, 
but though I believe in their ideals, I fancy there’ll be a lot 
of strife before we get there. Aren’t you one of them, by 
the bye?” 

“No,” said Julian, “I’m an outsider. And I’m not an 
idealist, thank goodness.” 

That last remark startled Herbert Thorndyke, and amused 
him. He looked at Julian with a playful light in his dark 
eyes. 

“Rather bored with idealism, eh? Well, we talk a lot of 
flap-doodle about it. The amount of hot air I’ve let out! 
All the same we have to work out some sort of ideal, and 
get keen on it. Otherwise there would be no progress at 
all.” 

“I don’t believe in that word Progress,” said Julian. 
“Isn’t it rather over-done? How have we progressed dur¬ 
ing the last three thousand years or so ?” 

He asked these questions curtly, almost uncivilly. An¬ 
other little question was much more urgent in his brain. 
“Shall I go down and open the door to Evelyn?” 

Herbert Thorndyke said something about “cycles of his¬ 
tory,” “civilisation and barbarism,” “the rise of Democracy,” 
“the status of the Average Man.” Julian did not follow 


300 Heirs Apparent 

him very clearly, but he seemed to think that humanity had 
a chance of getting on an upward curve and that “Labour” 
would give it a lift in that direction. 

“You ought to join us,” he said. 

“Who?” asked Julian, vaguely. 

“The Labour Party. We want young fellows like you. 
Lots of chance for talent and character! We’re not so nar¬ 
row as we were. We’re broadening.” 

Julian smiled in his superior way. 

“I’m afraid I don’t approve of the Labour programme. 
Not that I know a thing about it!” 

Herbert Thorndyke was not huffed by his words. 

“It might be worth your while to read a bit about it, my 
lad. Miss Nye could give you some of our pamphlets.” 

“No, thanks,” said Julian, hurriedly. “I won’t trouble 
her.” 

“Of course,” said Thorndyke, ignoring this rebuff, “our 
accents are a little strange in the House of Commons, and 
the manners of some of the wild ones are rather shocking 
to conventionalists, but you’ll get used to them in time. 
You’ve got to! And they’re only accidentals. The central 
fact in England to-day is the representation of the people 
for the first time in history by men who know their ideas, 
their way of life, their needs and their squalor, in mean 
streets and city slums. Legislation is no longer made by an 
aristocratic class with good intentions but divided from the 
seething masses by wide gulfs of caste, ignorance, and mis¬ 
understanding. The people, working through their Labour 
Party, are going to shape their own destiny.” 

“Very interesting,” said Julian. 

He wasn’t in the least interested at the moment in the 
People, or any kind of destiny they might desire to shape. 
He was wondering no longer whether he would go down¬ 
stairs and open the door to Evelyn, but how he could best 
slip away to do so without appearing discourteous to Henry 
Caffyn. 

Stokes Prichard was in deep conversation with Francine 
Leigh and two other good-looking girls who seemed to be 


Heirs Apparent 301 

amused with him. As usual he looked a marvellously beau¬ 
tiful object and was evidently enjoying himself. He was 
safe for hours. 

Henry Caffyn was talking to the young German. His 
words rang out above the buzz of conversation. 

“It's up to the youth of the world! They must get to¬ 
gether and declare a crusade—a Holy War of the spirit— 
against the old cruelties of life, the old passions of national 
egotism, the old slogans of hate and ignorance. Would to 
God I were twenty years younger to take my place in the 
ranks!” 

‘‘You are one of our leaders, sir,” said the young German. 
“Your words have reached as far as Germany. In our 
hearts—” 

Julian edged away from Herbert Thorndyke, deliberately 
mixed himself up with a group of young men and women 
talking Art for all they were worth, and then by artful 
manoeuvring worked his way towards the door. Two people 
were just entering, and created some stir. One was a tall, 
heavily-built man with a handsome, rugged face and a lock 
of white hair falling over his forehead. The other was a 
pretty woman in a black frock showing a long white neck 
and bare arms. Some one near Julian said, “The future 
Prime Minister.” It was the leader of the Labour Party. 

He never heard the name of the lady in the black frock, 
because he took advantage of her arrival to make a strategic 
retreat. He slipped downstairs as Big Ben boomed out the 
first strokes of ten o’clock. 

He went into his own rooms, switched on the electric 
light, and glanced on the floor of the passage to see if Evelyn 
had put a card or any message through the letter-box. 
There was nothing there. In the sitting-room he lit a ciga¬ 
rette and noticed that his hand trembled. What a fool he 
had been to go to that show upstairs! Supposing Evelyn 
had come and gone? While those ridiculous idealists were 
talking nonsense about reforming the world and shaping 
the destiny of peoples, he had rotted up his chance of per¬ 
sonal happiness and missed a supreme moment of life. 


302 


Heirs Apparent 

As he stood dejectedly in the centre of his room, there 
was a loud ring at the bell, followed by the rattle of the let¬ 
ter-box, as a friendly signal. 

He rushed to the door and opened it. Outside was Eve¬ 
lyn Iffield, in a silk opera cloak, with a rose in her hair. 

She smiled at him and held out both her hands. 

"Hullo, Boy! Do I intrude?” 

"Come in,” he said. 


XXXV 


E VELYN was charmed with the combined rooms of 
Stokes Prichard and Julian. After throwing off her 
cloak she wandered around studying the prints on the walls, 
Prichard’s photographs of pretty girls, and Julian’s pewter 
pots which he had bought for decorative purposes in the 
Charing Cross Road. She admired the chintz-covered chairs 
and the view of London from the windows, with the lurid 
glare of light in the sky above Piccadilly. 

“Perfectly topping!” she exclaimed. “How splendid to be 
in bachelor digs! Can I take a peep at the bedrooms, 
Julian?” 

“Why not?” he asked, looking at her with a shy glance, 
overwhelmed by her presence and unable to speak more than 
the most commonplace things in words of one syllable. 

He opened the bedroom doors for her, and she was amused 
and pleased by the daintiness of the rooms, and aghast in a 
comical way at the untidiness of Prichard’s room, which 
was littered with clothes. 

“What a Bolshevik! That boy is an artist in disorder.” 
The little kitchen enchanted her. 

“Why not make some tea?” she asked. “I’d love to boil 
the kettle on that gas jet, and a cup of tea would be delecta¬ 
ble after a dull dinner with medicated wine.” 

“Why not?” said Julian again. He watched her fill the 
kettle with water, light the gas ring, fetch cups and saucers 
from the cupboard over the sink. She was in an evening 
frock of some black gauzy stuff intertwined with silver 
flowers. She wore a pearl necklace, and that rose in her 
hair. He had never seen her looking so beautiful, he 
thought, and so mischievous. She had a dancing light in 
her eyes, and several times put her head on one side to look 
at him, with a teasing smile. 

“You look older, Julian! You look as if you’d been 
growing in wisdom and knowledge.” 

303 


304 Heirs Apparent 

“Journalism is apt to make one prematurely old,” he said, 
advancing from words of one syllable. “Soon I’ll be bald- 
headed.” 

She squealed with laughter at that. 

“The Bald-headed Babe! The oldest head on the young¬ 
est shoulders. Portrait by The Week's special photog¬ 
rapher.” 

“You still harp on my extreme juvenility,” said Julian. 

“Well, if that long word means youth,” she answered, 
“there’s no denying that you’re still very young, Julian. If 
you were ten years older I might—” 

“Might what?” he asked. 

She hesitated, and laughed to herself. 

“Well, I might be more of a nuisance to you than you 
would really like. Now here’s a nice cup of tea, exquisitely 
made. Carry it into the next room, and I’ll follow with the 
milk and sugar.” 

She sat in the chair where Janet had slept a few nights 
before. Julian thought of that, and the sudden reminder of 
that scene with his sister sent a little chill down his spine 
for a moment, 

“Tell me things,” said Evelyn. “How’s The Week? 
What brilliant things have you written? What’s it like to 
be a journalist?” 

He did not answer those questions. 

“I thought you had something to say to me,” he said. 

“Did you? Oh, I don’t know. Tell me your news first.” 

She questioned him about Stokes Prichard, Clatworthy, 
whom she had met and liked on that night in Soho, his father 
and mother, whom she had not seen since the garden party 
at Gorse Hill. She did not mention Janet, he noticed, 
though she had been with her at the night club before Janet 
had gone to Cyril’s rooms. He answered her questions 
briefly. 

Stokes Prichard was rather amusing. Inclined to go off 
the deep end on the slightest provocation. Clatworthy’s 
father was very ill. If he died Clatworthy would succeed to 
the title. A remarkable figure in the House of Lords! His 


Heirs Apparent 305 

own father was always boxed up in his editorial room. 
They didn’t see much of each other. 

“Have you found out your mission in life?” asked Eve¬ 
lyn. “Are you going to do Great Things one day ?” 

She smiled at him with a little mockery over her tea cup. 

“I’ve no desire that way,” said Julian. 

“Oh, yes, come now! I know you well enough to be 
certain that you’re predestined to be very earnest and noble 
and high-souled. It’s written in every line of your face, 
Julian. It’s in the make-up of your brain. You were born 
with a conscience, and a delicate sense of right and wrong. 
You have an instinctive allegiance to the law of the spirit. 
I’m one of the natural rebels, and devoid of conscience, 
though occasionally discreet.” 

He was silent, wondering how long she was going to stay, 
and if she would spend her time evading the real issues be¬ 
tween them. Perhaps it would be better if she did. It was 
good enough to see her there in his chair, to feel her pres¬ 
ence in his room. She gave it a grace which it had not pos¬ 
sessed before. It would be haunted by her when she went. 
He would see her sitting there, always. 

“I’d like you to do big things one day,” she said. “I’d 
like to feel, years hence, when I’m an old and wicked woman, 
with evil reputation, living in second class pensions at foreign 
watering places—‘Do you see that old creature? She was 
the beautiful Evelyn Iffield of the early Georgian age!—’— 
that I once inspired the great leader with his first ambitions, 
taught him a little knowledge of life, and even played with 
his hand in my lap in chaste affection. You must admit, 
Julian, that our walks and talks together in Surrey were 
very innocent and spiritual. The very angels above must 
have been edified.” 

“To me,” said Julian in a low voice, “they’re unforget¬ 
table.” 

“Don’t forget them!” said Evelyn. “Cherish the fragrance 
of them! I was your first romance, Julian, and while it 
lasted it was rather sweet. You owe me something for 
that!” 


306 Heirs Apparent 

“You talk as if it had ended!” said Julian. “Is that in¬ 
evitable ?” 

His voice trembled, boyishly, as he spoke. 

Evelyn rose from her chair, and came and sat on the 
floor by his side with her head against his knees. 

“Inevitable, after this evening,” she said. “For one hour 
we can indulge in romance again—boy and girl comradeship 
—and forget the grim old world and its coarse realities, and 
revolting disillusions.” 

“Why only for an hour?” asked Julian. He wanted to 
say more than that, but courage failed him, and that other 
part of his brain, as it seemed, which warned him of preci¬ 
pices, and tremendous gulfs. 

“Because,” said Evelyn, “at the end of an hour I’m going, 
dear Julian, and as far as you and I are concerned it’s the 
end of our adventure, and perhaps, if you feel like that, the 
end of our friendship !” 

She spoke lightly, with her usual note of mockery, but 
Julian seemed to hear a faint undertone of sincerity and 
regret. 

“What on earth do you mean?” he asked. “What are you 
going to do—after this silly hour?” 

“Oh, if you think it silly, I’ll go now!” said Evelyn, pre¬ 
tending to be huffed. 

“I mean silly because of its shortness,” he explained. 
“And you haven’t answered my question. Why should it be 
the end of all things—between you and me ?” 

She clasped her knees as she sat on the floor at his feet, 
and put her chin down to rest upon them. 

“Because—” she said slowly, as if thinking it all out as 
she spoke, “because you are twenty, and I am twenty-six. 
Also because I like you too much, and respect you too much 
—your boyishness, Julian!—to spoil things for you. And 
lastly, but not leastly—is that correct, Mr. Balliol?—because 
I’m going to do something which is frightfully caddish, 
abominably wicked, and deceitful above all things.” 

She turned round and looked up into his face to see what 
effect her statement had made. Julian had gone a little pale. 
There was something in the tone of her voice which made 


Heirs Apparent 307 

him believe that she was talking seriously, that she had 
some desperate plan in her mind, which was not good or 
pleasant. 

“You’re not chucking your husband, are you?” he asked 
huskily. 

She seemed amused at his way of putting it. 

“Yes,” she answered, “to be quite honest, Julian, I must 
put it in the past tense. Fve chucked him, this very night. 
At this very hour perhaps,”—she looked at a tiny gold wrist 
watch—“he has returned from his committee meeting of the 
golf club—Wednesday night—and is reading my letter of 
explanation. Such a chatty little letter! Explaining just 
why, nicely and kindly—but oh, so firmly.” 

“Why?” asked Julian in a low voice. 

Evelyn shrugged her shoulders. 

“All sorts of reasons. Very ordinary, rather squalid. 
His age and my youth. His mother, always in the house, 
watching, disapproving, suspishing, tale-telling, poisoning 
the wells of truth.” 

She sprang up and clasped her hands over her head, with 
a tragi-comical gesture. 

“Oh, that old woman, Julian! How we hated each other! 
We lived, ate, walked and talked, with a deadly hate in our 
hearts for each other, which we hid under ‘dearest mother/ 
and ‘dearest Evelyn!’ That’s not good. It doesn’t make 
for a healthy view of life. If I hadn’t cleared out I might 
have been tempted to murder the old woman—put poison 
in her tea, or something! I wanted to play the game by 
Ted, but she made it impossible. Impossible! Just to get 
back on her, just to play with her suspicions and keep my 
sense of humour, I flirted around a bit with any handy 
boy in the neighbourhood—not you, Julian!—you were dif¬ 
ferent ! I wanted to play the game by Ted—poor old Ted! 
—but two things have broken me down. His mother, and 
his golf! Funny that! Funny to think that golf has 
wrecked poor old Ted’s domestic bliss! But it’s a fact, 
Julian! I daresay it’s not the only marriage smashed to 
pieces with a niblick. What are wives going to do when 
their husbands spend their days walking round the links, 


308 Heirs Apparent 

restrict their conversation to handicaps and the great ad¬ 
venture at the thirteenth hole, and dream of golf after 
dinner, in the big arm chair? That was Ted. ‘Play a little 
Chopin, old girl!’ Oh, yes, a soothing accompaniment to a 
pleasant snore, with the ecstatic vision of holing out in one! 

. . . Boredom, Julian! That’s broken my moral strength. 
Devastating boredom in a country house with a mother-in- 
law. I warned him. I said, ‘If you don’t give up golf and 
take a house in town and leave dearest mother behind, 
there’s going to be trouble ’twixt you and me, old boy!’ 
When the scales of Fate were nicely balanced, dearest 
mother and the golf balls went down whop! I was sky 
high, light as a feather. Well, I’m quit of it. Ted and 
mother-in-law and ghost-haunted house. I’m free, Julian! 
A single lady for the nonce. Free as air, joyful in liberty, 
and out for adventure. That’s me!” 

She laughed down a high scale. 

“What are your plans?” asked Julian. “Where do I 
come in?” 

He was white to the lips. His mind was in a tumult 
of emotion, desire, and fear. Yes, he was conscious of 
fear. 

She came round the table to him and put her hands on his 
shoulders. 

“This hour—it’s slipping away,” she said, smiling at him. 
“This is your hour, Julian. Make the most of it. After 
that I’m going to be very busy.” 

“Tell me,” he said. “What are you going to do ?” 

She pulled out a little note from the bosom of her frock 
and held it above his head. 

“I wrote three letters to-day,” she said. “One to Ted, 
and one to you, and one to some one else. Quite a scribe! 
In yours you’ll find some kind words, and a little confes¬ 
sion. You mustn’t read it now, but when I’ve gone, it will 
tell you something which may vex you a little. That’s why 
I don’t want to spoil this hour, because I don’t want to 
make you in a bad temper. You look so sulky when you’re 
vexed! So I’ll just put it up here, over the mantelpiece. 
Next to Mr. Prichard’s little actress girl. Two light-o’- 


Heirs Apparent 309 

loves! Now, let's sit down and talk nicely. Like a good 
little boy and girl!” 

She sat down, with her hands grasping the arms of the 
chintz-covered chair, and looked at him teasingly, and yet 
with a little pity and regret. 

“I want to read that letter,” he said. “I want to know. 
Now.” 

“No. That letter’s private till I’ve gone. I put you on 
your honour, Julian. Good boy!” 

Julian dropped his hand from the mantelpiece to which 
he had reached for the letter. 

“Look here,” he said, “I know you think I’m a kid. A 
boy, just out of school and all that. But I don’t care a 
damn! Now that you’ve chucked Major Iffield, I want to 
say—” 

She shook her head and spoke hurriedly. 

“Don’t say it, Julian! I know you love me with all the 
passion of your young romantic heart. You’d work for me! 
You’d be very good to me, if we went away together. Isn’t 
that it, my dear? Yes, it would be splendid, if you were 
ten years older and I six years younger, and not twice mar¬ 
ried, and a thousand other things. I like you better than 
any other boy I’ve known. And that’s why I’m here to¬ 
night, to give you a farewell kiss and then—good-bye!” 

“No,” he said, “I’m damned if I leave it like that. If 
you’re going away with any one it’s with me. . . Evelyn!” 

He went towards her, and she rose from her chair, 
smiling, and a little pale. . . . 

There was the sound of a key fumbling at the Yale lock. 
They both heard it, and Julian knew it was Stokes Prichard 
back early from the show upstairs. 

Perhaps Evelyn guessed that it was Prichard coming in. 

She went quickly to Julian and held out her hands. 

“Quick! That farewell kiss! Your last chance, Julian.” 

He took her hands and drew her close and kissed her on 
the lips with boyish passion. 

They drew apart again, Evelyn humming a little tune and 
touching her coiled hair carelessly as Stokes Prichard came 
in. 


310 Heirs Apparent 

He was amazed to see Evelyn there, as he had been to 
find Janet asleep in this room, some mornings ago. 

“Excuse me/’ he said, “I’d no notion—” 

Evelyn held out her hand. 

“I’m Evelyn Iffield, one of Julian’s friends. I expect 
you’re Mr. Prichard, part owner of these exquisite rooms.” 

“Good, aren’t they?” he said, shaking hands with her. 
“How do you like these chintz-covered chairs ? My choice. 
Julian thinks they’re loud!” 

“Perfectly sweet,” answered Evelyn. “I’m sorry I can’t 
sit in one a moment longer. Who will take me to a taxi?” 

“Oh, Lord!” said Stokes Prichard. “Must you go? For 
Heaven’s sake stay a bit longer, and cheer up two benighted 
bachelors.” 

“Sorry. Engagements forbid! . . . Julian, that taxi!” 

Prichard insisted on accompanying Evelyn and Julian to 
the street door where a crawling taxi halted at his signal. 

“Well, good-bye, Julian. I’m glad I found you in. Good 
evening, Mr. Prichard.” 

She gave her hand to each in turn, and held Julian’s a 
moment, tightly. 

Then she went away in the taxi, waving a white glove at 
them. 

“What a wonderfully beautiful person!” said Stokes 
Prichard, with his usual enthusiasm for pretty women. 
“Where have you been hiding her all this time ?” 

Julian muttered something about her living in the coun¬ 
try, and was silent when Prichard narrated his adventures 
upstairs, and said that he had fled at the first opportunity, 
after being taken away from Francine Leigh who was a 
“peach” and introduced to a lady Bolshevik with eyes like 
gimlets—they bored into his backbone—and a mouth like 
a codfish. 

While Prichard flung himself into the arm chair where 
Evelyn had been sitting, Julian took her letter down from 
the mantelpiece, and after a casual remark that he was 
“damn tired,” went to his bedroom. 

Standing by his dressing table, he tore open the en¬ 
velope, sick with desire to know what Evelyn had written, 


Heirs Apparent 311 

yet half afraid to read. It did not take long to read, though 
it covered four sheets in her big scrawling hand. 

“Dear Julian, 

“In case you are not in this evening when I come, I have written 
this to slip through your letter-box. I have left poor old Ted at 
last. The situation became impossible. To-morrow morning I am 
crossing over to France with a mutual friend of ours with whom 
I am going to live until we fail to amuse each other. That’s Cyril, 
whom you detest so much. He was always a good friend of mine, 
and we have discovered lately that we laugh at the same jokes. 
He also pretends—with passionate insincerity—that I am the only 
woman he has ever loved, and I agree to believe it. Of course it 
will end in tragedy—these things do—but meanwhile I shall get 
some fun out of it, I hope. Anyhow, it’s an escape from the 
mother-in-law, and the intolerable boredom of poor old Ted. You 
will be shocked. So you ought to be, dear Julian! It’s not a nice 
thing to do. I know you love me with a boyish adoration. I liked 
to see that little flame in your eyes, and to feel your hand tremble 
when I touched it. It was so nice to be loved like that! But you 
see I’ve been twice married, and I’m ever so old in the knowledge 
of evil, and I couldn’t spoil your young life by letting you be 
foolish with me. That may count unto me for righteousness, here¬ 
after ! Well, Julian, that’s that. I shall watch your career from 
afar. I shall rejoice one day when you marry a nice girl, without 
a mother-in-law, I hope. Don’t play golf in your middle age. And 
remember, with forgiveness and a little pity, and the mild tender¬ 
ness of a romantic episode, 

“Your affectionate friend, 

“Evelyn I.” 

“P.S. I’m sorry about Janet. But Cyril wasn’t good enough for 
her, and she was too much of a baby for him. I’m saving her from 
disillusion.” 

Julian let the letter slip from his hands to the floor. He 
was white to the lips, and there was a look of horror in his 
eyes. She was going off with Cyril Buckland—that black¬ 
guard who had broken his sister’s heart. 

He gave a kind of strangled groan, raising his hands 
above his head as though crying out to the God in whom 
he did not believe. 

“What’s the matter?” asked Prichard, from the next 
room. 

“Nothing,” said Julian. 


XXXVI 


A FTER a night of wakefulness, Julian went to the office 
as usual, with one resolution which was the only defi¬ 
nite result of long hours of agonising thought which had 
been very wild at times. He was going to resign his job on 
The Week. It was impossible to accept wages from a man 
whose son had behaved like a brute to Janet and now was 
on his way to drag Evelyn Iffield to the level of his own 
beastliness. 

Since the morning of that scene with his sister, Julian had 
decided to throw up his job. He had delayed only because 
his pledge of secrecy to Janet made it difficult to face his 
father with a plausible excuse for clearing out. In any 
case he would have done so. His conversation with Burton 
and Dickson, and his own experience, had convinced him 
that the game of journalism as played on The Week was 
a degradation from which he must find some way of escape 
before its dirt soaked into his soul. There were other pa¬ 
pers in Fleet Street, not as low as that. He might try for 
a job on one. . . . Anyhow he had made up his mind to 
face his father with the truth about The Week as it ap¬ 
peared to his own staff—and to his own son. Surely to 
God there was time even for his father to escape from its 
poisonous influence and from that old devil to whom he had 
sold himself. . . . Now he would have to say something 
about Cyril. He could do so without giving Janet away. 
He would tell his father plainly that Cyril had left Janet 
in the lurch and had run off with Evelyn Iffield, leaving 
Janet with a broken heart. Surely it would be impossible 
for his father to go on working for a man whose son had 
done that. He would be lost to all sense of honour if he 
ignored such an outrage. 

In that night of wakefulness Julian had faced up to reali¬ 
ties. In tears and in agony he had grown older in this hour 

312 


Heirs Apparent 313 

of bitterness, and had stared at aspects of truth about him¬ 
self and life. Evelyn's letter had scorched him. His horror 
at it was because she had gone off with Cyril. That had 
filled him with overwhelming disgust. But gradually this 
disgust included himself. He had been ready to play the 
Cyril game. If he had been a few years older Evelyn 
would have been willing to play it with him. He had no 
claim to virtuous indignation, and yet he loathed the idea 
of Evelyn doing this thing. Didn’t that prove the hypocrite 
in him? Yes, he had been a hypocritical young swine, play¬ 
ing with the idea of immorality though all his decent in¬ 
stincts, and any code he had, were on the side of moral law. 
The vision of Major Iffield came to him—that dull, simple 
man faced by this tragedy, crumpled up by it. What about 
his agony, for the wife he had loved ? At this very time he 
would be suffering torture. Julian pitied him, and was glad 
in a way that he had not been the cause of that man’s 
bleeding heart. 

Some wild schemes of preventing Evelyn from doing this 
thing had leapt to his mind. But he had no knowledge of 
her whereabouts. She had not given any hint of her ad¬ 
dress. He might go down to Gorse Hill—motor down— 
and see Major Iffield. He was not likely to be asleep that 
night! Yes, he would do that! . . . 

He went out of his rooms—stealing out so as not to 
wake Prichard—as far as the garage where he kept his car. 
But the place was shut up and in darkness. In any case 
what was the use? Probably Evelyn had already crossed 
the Channel. She had timed her visit to get the boat train 
from Charing Cross. It was obvious. She had gone 
straight from his rooms to the station, where Cyril was 
waiting for her. He raged at the thought, and had a kind 
of brain storm. . . . What should he do? What, in God’s 
name, could he do? . . . He went to Charing Cross station 
and asked a porter whether he had seen a tall lady—young 
and good-looking—in evening dress, catching the boat train. 
The man jeered at him, and said, “Do you think I remember 
’em all? Joking, aren’t you? Pretty or plain, they’re all 
the same to me—a damn nuisance.” 


314 Heirs Apparent 

In a telephone box Julian tried to ring up Major Iffield. 
The exchange was closed. At least he could get no answer 
from Gorse Hill. In any case he had come out without 
money, so that if the call had been answered, he could not 
have paid. Outside the telephone box he cursed his fate, 
and attracted the unfavourable notice of a Charing Cross 
policeman. 

“Now then, young fellow, what’s your trouble?” 

He had a mad idea of confiding his trouble to this young 
policeman. Perhaps Scotland Yard might help. He stam¬ 
mered out something about a lady he wanted to find, but 
the policeman was unsympathetic. 

“If you take my advice, young fellow, you’ll go home to 
your Ma!” 

He went home to his rooms again, creeping in as he had 
crept out. There was nothing he could do. . . . He won¬ 
dered vaguely and foolishly if prayer might be any good. A 
prayer to The Unknown God to save Evelyn from Cyril? 

“Oh, God!” he whispered. “Oh, God! If You have any 
pity for women—” 

There were fellows who prayed and believed in miracles! 
Only a miracle could help her now, some kind of Power 
stretched out to catch Cyril by the throat and choke him— 
the beast. 

He had spoilt Janet’s life. Now he was going to spoil 
Evelyn’s. Brother and sister had both been broken by this 
vile cub of an infamous father. Victor Buckland’s son! 
Cyril had confessed to bad blood. The Old Man was poison¬ 
ing English life. His son was spreading the poison in 
private lives. And Victor Buckland’s money was the price 
of the Perryam dishonour, father, son, daughter. The two 
skunks! . . . 

Julian felt hatred like a flame in his brain. He desired 
to kill Cyril. It would be pleasant to bash him. Exceed- 
ingly good to rid the earth of such an animal. . . . Then 
hatred passed from him at the thought of his own weakness 
and passion. Cyril was not much worse than himself. Per¬ 
haps nothing worse, but only a little older, and more cynical, 
and less of a hypocrite. Evelyn was “amused” by him, 


Heirs Apparent 315 

though she saw that the affair would end in tragedy. “They 
always do.” There was a great pity in his heart for Evelyn, 
and a greater pity for himself. And after pity came anger, 
and after anger, a renewal of all his agony, self-contempt, 
disgust, misery, until, in the morning, he was hollow-eyed, 
and frightened Stokes Prichard at the breakfast table. 

“Pm afraid you’re sickening for something, old man,” 
said Prichard. “Anything but mumps! It’s horribly catch¬ 
ing, and I’d hate to have my beauty spoilt before your 
sister Janet comes to tea.” 

Julian felt weak, washed-out, and entirely unemotional, 
having exhausted emotion, when he walked up to the office 
to see his father and resign his job. 

In the office of The Week Julian was vaguely aware of 
some suppressed excitement among the staff. Behind the 
counter three of the girl clerks and one of the men clerks 
had their heads together over some paper. When he walked 
past them they seemed to have a guilty look, and hurriedly 
dispersed, while one of the girls hid the paper under a 
ledger. Why ? He couldn’t imagine. He wasn’t the business 
manager, peeved if these people wasted their time. 

Upstairs in the editorial department Horace Burton’s lady 
secretary was talking with one of the typists. They too had 
their heads together over some paper the size of the Spec¬ 
tator, and when he entered the room drew apart hurriedly 
and thrust the paper on one side. 

“Is Mr. Burton in?” asked Julian, again wondering 
vaguely what was the news which seemed to excite the staff, 
and why they hid the paper they were reading as soon as 
he appeared. 

He found Horace Burton sitting forward at his desk, 
utterly absorbed in a page of the same sized paper, which 
looked like the Spectator. He was smiling to himself in his 
sardonic way and said “Put it down” without looking up, 
and obviously mistaking Julian for the office boy with a 
proof. 

“Good morning,” said Julian gloomily. “Any news?” 

Burton jerked his head up and said, “Oh!” and then 
gave Julian a curious searching look. 


316 Heirs Apparent 

“See this?” he asked, pushing across the paper. It was 
a copy of Verity, dog’s-eared at a page bearing the title: 

“THE WEEK DEFRAUDS THE BRITISH PUBLIC.’’ 

Underneath in bold letters was the subtitle: 

“bogus scheme of victory bond prizes : 

MR. VICTOR BUCKLAND DEFIES THE LAW.” 

It was signed by a name familiar to Julian and to most 
people in England—Henry Caffyn. 

Julian glanced down the page, while Horace Burton 
watched him curiously. The article seemed to be a scath¬ 
ing attack on the Old Man in connection with his new 
scheme of Victory Bond Prizes. There were a lot of figures 
which Julian couldn’t follow. They seemed to make out a 
charge of fraud on the people who subscribed to the scheme. 
He read some words in the concluding paragraph. 

“For years this man, Victor Buckland, has posed as a patriot and 
public philanthropist while raising the circulation of his paper and 
acquiring great personal wealth by methods of money prizes and 
financial advice which have been fraudulent in effect, though tech¬ 
nically perhaps within the law. In several cases where the law 
intervened, Mr. Buckland’s mastery of legal niceties and his flam¬ 
boyant oratory with ignorant juries enabled him to secure a ver¬ 
dict in his favour. In spite of the flagrant dishonesty of the 
Widow’s Pension Fund, the law has shown itself to be strangely 
timid in directing its attention to Mr. Buckland’s activities. There is 
no longer any excuse for such inaction. Here is a case of common 
and deliberate fraud which would instantly cause the arrest of any 
man less protected by political friends and by sinister influence in 
high quarters. If there is no legal enquiry into this scheme for 
obtaining public money under false pretences, England will under¬ 
stand that her Courts of Justice have betrayed their duty and their 
tradition. Mr. John Perryam, editor of The Week, may or may not 
be associated with his proprietor in this conspiracy, but his honour 
as a journalist is deeply at stake.” 

Julian read these paragraphs slowly, and without excite¬ 
ment. Only the mention of his father’s name caused him 
a momentary alarm. 


Heirs Apparent 317 

“What does it all mean?” he asked, coldly. “Is it serious 
at all?” 

Horace Burton was sitting back in his swing chair, 
tapping his front teeth with a penholder, playing a little 
tune on them. 

“Not pleasant,” he said. “Rather damn serious for the 
Old Man. He’s got to answer this—and it will take a lot 
of answering.” 

“What about my father?” asked Julian. 

Horace Burton smiled rather doubtfully. 

“Well, that’s a point too! What about your father? 
Whether he’s legally involved or not I can’t say. I hope 
not, old man, for your sake, and his.” 

He laughed harshly, after a moment’s silence. 

“All the fat’s in the fire, anyhow! It may be the end of 
the jolly old Week! On the street again, for all of us.” 

His voice broke a little. 

“Hard luck on the little wife, if it comes to that! The 
third time!” 

He left his chair and strode up and down the room, 
excited and alarmed, yet—Julian thought—finding some 
cynical pleasure in this attack on his Chief. 

“Of course the law will have to act. It can’t ignore this 
—over the signature of a man like Caffyn. It puts the Old 
Man into a cleft stick. Either he’s got to sue Caffyn for 
libel or acknowledge the charge. If there’s a libel action 
and he loses, the Public Prosecutor will have to get busy. 
Well, I shan’t shed any tears. I’ve been expecting it. It 
was bound to happen, and the biggest old hypocrite in Eng¬ 
land will be brought to book at last. A good thing for 
England!” 

“You seem to assume the charges can be upheld,” said 
Julian. For the first time he was beginning to feel scared. 

“There’s not a doubt about it,” said Burton. “Those 
facts and figures speak for themselves. How that fellow 
Caffyn got hold of them I can’t imagine. But he’s got 
the Old Man. Got him all ends up! And he won’t leave 
go. There are more articles to follow. To be continued.’ 
A very nice serial story!” 


318 Heirs Apparent 

He laughed again, and played another little tune on his 
teeth with the end of his penholder. Then he suddenly 
swung round to Julian, and spoke with an unusual emotion. 

“It’ll be a damned shame if your father gets dragged into 
it. He’s never interested himself in the Old Man’s finan¬ 
cial schemes. Doesn’t understand figures any more than 
a babe, or old Balfour! He’s a gentleman, and there’s not 
a fellow on the staff who hasn’t a good word for him. I 
will say that!” 

“Very kind of you!” said Julian, with a touch of sar¬ 
casm. But his voice was not quite steady. Gradually a 
sense of fear was creeping over him. At first he had not 
realised the gravity of this business. Now—if Burton were 
not exaggerating—it looked as though his father’s name 
and honour might be in danger. Perhaps even more than 
that. . . . Supposing the law were to take action against 
his father, as Editor, as well as against the Old Man? . . . 
Julian thrust the thought away from him. It was prepos¬ 
terous and unbelievable. His father, so timid, and shrink¬ 
ing, and sensitive, the most honest and upright man alive, 
involved in a charge of conspiracy to defraud the public! 
The thing was too hideously absurd. 

He went up to Mr. Perryam’s room, and noticed that 
even the messenger boys outside were reading the article in 
Verity. They winked at each other, as Julian passed and 
tapped at the Editor’s door. As there was no answer he 
opened the door and went inside. His father was seated 
at his table at the far end of the room—a handsome room 
panelled in oak and furnished in the Jacobean style. Above 
the fireplace, elaborately carved in imitation of Grinling 
Gibbons, was a copy of the portrait of Victor Buckland 
which Julian had seen at the Old Man’s house at Hindhead. 
He seemed to be looking down on his editor with a bland, 
patronising smile. 

Two other men were in the room—Mr. Birch, the Busi¬ 
ness Manager, a stout, middle-aged man, wearing a white 
waistcoat under his frock coat, and a legal-looking man 
unknown to Julian. 


Heirs Apparent 319 

Julian’s father was speaking as he entered, in an emo¬ 
tional tone. 

“You know all about this scheme, Birch. Why try to 
keep the truth from me? Is it illegal, or is it not?” 

The Business Manager was breathing heavily. He put 
his plump finger inside his collar as though it were too 
tight for him. 

“The Governor controls all these schemes himself, as you 
well know. I had my suspicions, I confess. I warned him 
from the beginning.” 

“Why didn’t you warn me ?” asked Mr. Perryam sharply. 
“I’m supposed to be the Editor of this paper. But as far as 
the business side goes, I’m kept completely in the dark. I 
know no more of finance than a babe unborn.” 

“That’s why I didn’t discuss it with you,” said the Busi¬ 
ness Manager, sullenly. 

“I didn’t want you to discuss it with me. But I expect 
a little loyalty from my staff. A little common honesty, 
anyhow. You, above all men, Birch, ought to have given 
me a hint—a danger signal. It was my influence that 
brought you here, for old times’ sake.” 

“I wish to Heaven you hadn’t!” said the Business Man¬ 
ager, in a low voice. “I’ve never known a moment’s peace 
since the Old Man put me into this position.” 

“We’d better get down to the facts,” said the legal-look¬ 
ing man quietly. “I suppose the books are in order?” 

“I doubt it,” said the Business Manager. “The Chief 
has a peculiar system of bookkeeping. Besides, we’ve been 
snowed under.” 

The lawyer stroked his jaw. 

“I don’t like the look of things,” he said. 

It was then that Mr. Perryam saw his son standing at 
the door. 

“Hullo, Julian,” he said quietly. “Come in. You know 
Mr. Birch?” 

“Yes,” said Julian. 

Mr. Birch said “Good morning,” with forced geniality, 
gathered up some papers,, and glanced at the lawyer. 


320 Heirs Apparent 

“We may as well go round to the Temple.” 

The other man nodded. 

“Yes—we’ll have a talk with Tasker. He’s the best 
in a case like this.” 

Julian was left alone with his father. 


XXXVII 


M R. PERRYAM sat staring at his table, and Julian 
noticed that he had a grey look, and that his hand 
trembled as he touched some papers and moved them away 
from his blotting-pad. 

“What’s the meaning of it all?” asked Julian. “That 
article in Verity ?” 

Mr. Perryam gave a groan. 

“It means that I shall find myself in Queer Street if I’m 
not careful. Perhaps if I am careful!” 

Mr. Perryam rose from his chair and paced up and down 
the room. 

“I’ve never understood the financial side of the paper,” 
he said. “I’ve never taken any interest or share in any of 
the Old Man’s gambling adventures. I’d like you to know 
that, Julian, in case anything happens.” 

He went to the window and looked down into the street 
where the news carts were waiting for the next issue of The 
Week, published that day. Then he paced back to his table, 
fingering his brass inkstand. 

“For ten years I’ve sat in this room,” he said. “When I 
first entered it as editor, it seemed that I’d reached the top 
of the ladder. I was proud of those panelled walls and 
that carved mantelpiece, and those oak chairs—sham an¬ 
tique ! They were the outward and visible signs of Success. 
It seemed a great thing to run a paper with a circulation 
of a million and a half. A great game! Also it meant a 
salary of three thousand a year, with a five years’ contract, 
after poverty, struggle, insecurity of tenure, the ups and 
downs of Fleet Street. It meant that house at Gorse Hill, 
the means of sending you to Winchester and then to Ox¬ 
ford, a good education for Janet, a little luxury for your 
mother, poor darling. I was pleased with myself when I 
first sat in this chair, with a sense of power—and a sense 

321 


322 Heirs Apparent 

of humour. Oh, I had a great sense of humour at first! It 
amused me to arrange sensational ‘scoops/ to reveal the 
latest scandal, sometimes to remedy some horrible abuse, or 
unmask some pestilential scoundrel. We did a bit of good 
now and then! It seemed a tremendous lark—a great 
adventure—in the early days. Old friends in Fleet Street 
envied me. That fellow Perryam has done pretty well for 
himself!’ So I thought for a time. . . . Until this room 
became my prison house!” 

Mr. Perryam glanced round the room with a look of 
loathing. 

“The prison house of my soul, old boy!” he said, in a 
broken voice. “I can see that now. For the sake of Suc¬ 
cess I sold myself to that old ruffian. You were quite right 
when you said I was a bought man. It hurt me at the time. 
... To keep my job and carry out his policy—according 
to contract!—I’ve compromised with truth, pandered to the 
mob instinct, sunk my own ideals and convictions, turned 
a blind eye to the corrupt and sinister schemes of the man 
who paid me as his hireling and his bond slave.” 

Mr. Perryam seemed to forget the presence of his son. 
He talked as though thinking aloud, with his hands behind 
his back and his head bent. 

“It was the war killed my sense of humour. Jack’s death, 
and all that. It made me see how low this game was, how 
vile! Since then I’ve been tortured, conscience-stricken— 
and trying to keep a bright face at home!” 

He turned round and stared up at the big portrait of 
Victor Buckland. 

“That man!” he said in a low voice. “How he has 
dragged me down. How he has degraded me! As low as 
the dirt!” 

He remembered Julian again, and his face flushed a little, 
and he breathed heavily. 

“I ought never to have allowed you to come into this 
place, old boy. With so many sinister swine walking about 
its passages—the Old Man’s tools and hirelings—on the 
business side. Well, I never had anything to do with all 
that. The editorial side was utterly divorced from the 


Heirs Apparent 323 

financial department. I’ve clean hands in that way, any¬ 
how.” 

Julian rose from his chair and faced his father, white¬ 
faced. 

“Look here, father! You had better clear out while 
there’s time. Resign your job before the trouble breaks.” 

Mr. Perryam shook his head. 

“It means abject poverty if I do! The end of Gorse 
Hill and your mother’s happiness, and Janet’s prospects.” 

“Better than a case in the Law Courts,” said Julian. 

Mr. Perryam turned as white as Julian. 

“I don’t think it will come to that. I hope not.” 

“Besides,” said Julian, “you can get another job, on a 
better paper. The Times?” 

Mr. Perryam laughed uneasily. 

“Not a chance, old boy. I’m tarred with the Old Man’s 
brush. And anyhow Fleet Street is choked with out-of- 
work editors. If I leave The Week I’m done. Finished.” 

“I’m leaving it anyhow,” said Julian. “To-day. I’d 
rather starve to death than work another hour for these 
Buckland swine.” 

He spoke with suppressed passion which only blazed in 
his eyes. 

Mr. Perryam stared at him gloomily. 

“That only means that I shall have to keep you. It will 
only add to my burden and worry.” 

Julian exploded with rage and indignation. 

“Don’t you understand, father? Every day you stay on 
here you’re sinking neck deep in mud. I always thought 
you were a man of honour! An Idealist and all that. 
Why! for years you’ve been living on muck! This garbage 
of the gutter press! How can I have any respect for you, 
now I’ve found out what it all means? One can’t shovel 
it all on to old Buckland. You’ve been his right-hand man, 
and played up to him. You’ve carried out his policy and 
done his dirty work.” 

Mr. Perryam breathed heavily and his face flushed scarlet 
and then paled so that his skin was grey. 

He spoke in a broken way, miserably, without anger. 


324 Heirs Apparent 

"I’m sorry you feel like that, old boy! No respect for 
me, eh? After all my love for you—my devotion.” 

"You’ve got to throw up this job,” said Julian. "There’s 
another reason. Cyril Buckland has chucked Janet—after 
playing about with her—like the damned cad he is!” 

“What do you mean?” asked Mr. Perryam, harshly. He 
had a look of great fear in his eyes, as he rose from his 
chair unsteadily. "Julian! ... In God’s name, old boy! 
. . . What’s this about Janet?” 

Julian was smitten with a pang of pity for his father. 
He had idolised Janet, spoilt her from babyhood. If she 
sneezed he worried about her health. If she asked for the 
moon, he would try and get it for her. 

Julian softened the blow a little. 

"She’ll get over it all right. She’s only a kid. But she 
was pretty far gone on Cyril—thought all the world of 
him. Now he’s chucked her. He’s run away with Evelyn 
Iffield. Last night.” 

"With Major Iffield’s wife?” 

Mr. Perryam stared at Julian, whose eyes dropped be¬ 
neath his father’s gaze. He remembered that his father 
knew of his own episode with Evelyn. 

Mr. Perryam said, "Good God! Good God!” 

Then he turned to his son and spoke in a tone of tragic 
reproach. 

"You and Janet have been hiding things from me. What 
do I know of you both? You’ve made a stranger of me, 
though I’ve been a good father to you, whatever you think 
of my work. Your mother and I agonised over your 
slightest illness, worried if you lost appetite a little, denied 
ourselves in every way to give you any happiness. And 
with what reward? You’ve kept your own secrets, ar¬ 
ranged your own pleasures—without us—gone on adven¬ 
tures which we could only guess at vaguely, with anxiety 
and fear. I hated to be an old-fashioned disciplinarian. It 
seemed out of keeping with the spirit of modern youth. I 
was easy-going, though full of doubts and anxieties when 
Janet stayed out late, ran up to town to unknown friends. 


Heirs Apparent 325 

came back without telling a word about her doings. I 
heard rumours of you and Major Iffield’s wife. . . . What 
could I say? You never came to me for a word of advice 
or help. You would have resented the slightest hint, 
angrily. So I kept quiet. I didn’t approve of Cyril hang¬ 
ing about Janet. I didn’t like the fellow, and was very 
anxious. I spoke to your mother about it, and she pooh- 
poohed my alarm. I spoke to Janet one day, and she 
laughed at me and then was rude and hurt me horribly. 
Now you tell me things that make my blood run cold. And 
I don’t know how much you’re still hiding from me. . . . 
What about Janet? Is she all right? ... If I knew that 
anything had happened to her—anything worse than what 
you’ve told me—” 

He put his hand against his side with a kind of convul¬ 
sive gesture and said in a loud voice, 

“By God, Julian! ... I couldn’t bear it! I couldn’t 
bear it!” 

Julian answered him coldly, masking his own emotion. 

“There’s nothing more to know, father. Janet will be 
heartbroken for a little while. But it won’t last long. This 
breaking of hearts is all bunk, I’m told.” 

He spoke with bitter sarcasm, feeling that his own heart 
was broken and his own life smashed because of Evelyn, 
but putting up a good pretence of callousness. Then he 
returned to his argument, his idee fixe. 

“All the same, it’s another reason for chucking old Buck- 
land. You can’t go on after this.” 

Mr. Perryam suddenly flamed out with anger. 

“Why not? What has his son’s ill conduct got to do 
with him? Do you think he has any more control over 
Cyril than I over you ? Are the fathers to be made respon¬ 
sible for the sins of their sons? Do you think it will please 
the Old Man to know that his young blackguard has run 
off with another man’s wife? Vile as he is, his home life 
has been honest, and he doted on that boy of his.” 

“The animals dote on their young,” said Julian. “Even 
tigers and apes. It’s the law of nature. But there’s an- 


326 Heirs Apparent 

other law, and if old Buckland isn’t careful he’s going to 
get lagged. Father, I implore you to cut your connection 
with that old ruffian. Before it’s too late.” 

Mr. Perryam was silent. Julian could hear his father’s 
hard breathing, as he stood by his desk, fumbling with 
some papers in his basket. 

“There’s such a thing as loyalty,” he said, after a long 
pause. “Honour, even in dishonour. I’ve shared his suc¬ 
cess. If he gets into trouble, I’ll share his trouble.” 

Julian looked at his father’s face, and saw the line of his 
lips harden with obstinate resolve. 

“What about us?” asked Julian. “The mater—and our 
name ?” 

“We must all face up to it,” said Mr. Perryam. “In any 
case I’ve got to keep you all, and without this job there’s 
nothing doing!” 

Julian went towards the door, and stood there hesitating, 
while his father sat at his desk again, heavily. 

“Well,” said Julian, “I’ve finished with the Buckland 
family. I’m off.” 

“That’s all right,” said Mr. Perryam. “Let me know 
your plans—if you have any.” 

“I haven’t,” said Julian, “but I’ll look round for some.” 

“Good!” said Mr. Perryam with a hint of sarcasm. 

Outside the door Julian saw the Old Man coming up the 
stairs. His heavy figure looked enormous in a big motor 
coat lined with fur. His puffed eyes glanced at Julian 
without recognition and he passed without a word towards 
the Editor’s room. He had a worried look, and his usual 
air of bland pomposity had passed from him. 


XXXVIII 


O N the evening of his resignation from The Week 
Julian went one flight above his own rooms—Stokes 
Prichard had gone out to dinner again—and knocked at 
Henry Caffyn’s door. 

Neither to Burton nor to his father had he mentioned 
his friendship with this man who had opened such a fero¬ 
cious attack upon Victor Buckland and the paper. His 
habitual reserve had kept him silent on that point, but at 
the back of his mind was the thought that he might save 
his father’s reputation—at least exercise some useful in¬ 
fluence—by some sort of plea to Caffyn. It was an un¬ 
pleasant task and horribly humiliating, but the picture of 
his father’s tragic eyes haunted Julian, and bade him face 
the ordeal. For the mater’s sake, too! It would be an 
infernal tragedy to her if this business led to the downfall 
of The Week and the family fortunes. To be thrust back 
into poverty again—the Brixton Road!—after all her 
struggle, and that early squalor. . . . 

Julian felt the sweat on his forehead outside Henry 
Caffyn’s door. His nerves were all jangled by the abomi¬ 
nable happenings of the last few days—Janet, Evelyn—now 
this danger to his father and all of them! 

The door was opened by Henry Caffyn himself. He was 
in the old velvet jacket which he wore as a rule after dinner, 
and he was holding one of his team of pipes which hung 
in a rack over his mantelpiece. His eyes lighted up when 
he saw Julian. 

“Hullo, young fellow! Come for a yarn with the old 
man ? That’s fine! Come in and make yourself at home.” 

Julian went into his room, walled in by books of all shapes 
and sizes, except where a few engravings hung. On the 
mantelpiece was the portrait of a boy in khaki with a little 
lamp burning a red light below it. A great bowl of roses 

327 


328 Heirs Apparent 

was on the table where Caffyn had been writing—the ink 
was wet on his writing pad—and the room was fragrant 
with their scent. 

“William Allen Richardson,” said Henry Caffyn, touch¬ 
ing one of the roses tenderly. “Sent me by a lovely lady, 
dear heart!” 

He held out a tobacco jar and said, “Help yourself,” but 
Julian disappointed him by lighting a cigarette. 

“I’m having the devil of a time with my book on ‘The 
Chance of Youth/ ” he said, with a rueful glance at his 
manuscript. “I believe it’s all wrong from beginning to 
end! Your little friend Audrey Nye gave me a frightful 
knock by a chance remark she made. Said, ‘the Young 
Idea is only the old idea with a new kind of slang!’ My 
word, that was a body blow to my philosophy.” 

Julian was silent, so silent that presently, after various 
discursive remarks, Henry Caffyn glanced at him with a 
humorous smile and said, “Understudying Hamlet, young 
fellow? Or is the tailor pressing for his little account? 
If a small loan is any use to you—” 

Julian unburdened himself. It was not easy, in spite of 
this man’s kindness and geniality. 

“Look here, sir,” he said, awkwardly, “I’ve come to con¬ 
sult you about a private matter. It’s rather important— 
and damnable.” 

“No trouble with a lady, I hope?” asked Henry Caffyn, 
good-humouredly. 

Julian reflected miserably that there was trouble with a 
lady, but Henry Caffyn could not help him there. 

“A business matter,” he said. “The fact is that I’m the 
son of John Perryam, Editor of The Week.” 

Henry Caffyn gave a little low whistle and said, “The 
devil you are!” Then he gave a quick searching glance at 
Julian and said, “That’s not your fault!” 

“No,” said Julian. “But I happen to like my father— 
he’s been all that’s decent—and I rather fancy your attack 
in Verity is going to knock him edgewise.” 

Henry Caffyn wiped the bowl of his pipe carefully on the 
side of his nose so that it shone with a new polish. 


Heirs Apparent 329 

“I’m not out for your father particularly,” he said. “I’ve 
heard good things about him. I’m after Old Man Buck- 
land . . . and I mean to get him this time.” 

“It will drag my father down,” said Julian. “That’s in¬ 
evitable if you get the Old Man.” 

Henry Caffyn polished his pipe on the other side of his 
nose. 

“Yes, I suppose so. . . . I’m sorry for your sake, laddie. 
Fathers are a bit of a nuisance sometimes.” 

Julian looked up at this white-haired man with the 
pointed beard—so like Don Quixote, so noble and gallant¬ 
looking, and kind. 

“I suppose you must go on? Is it worth while, do you 
think? It will be rather rough if you destroy my father 
—and the whole crowd of us—in order to get at a rotten 
old skunk.” 

Henry Caffyn sprang up from his chair and his grey eyes 
were intensely alight. 

“I shall certainly go on. And I do think it’s worth while. 
And I can’t help it if your father gets caught in the same 
trap. If it were my own father, I should go on, week by 
week, piling libel on libel, until that old scoundrel Buck- 
land sues me or gets the hand of the law on his shoulder. 
I’m out for him. I’ll never leave go until I’ve nobbled 
him.” 

“What’s your quarrel with him?” asked Julian. 

Henry Caffyn stroked his pointed beard with nervous 
fingers, and laughed a little. 

“I hate him like hell!” he said. “Not that I’ve ever met 
him or cast eye on him. There’s nothing personal in my 
hate, I can assure you. But to me he’s the symbol, the 
arch-type of all that’s brutal, corrupt, and vile in English 
life to-day. What’s the good of trying to give a lead to 
the people—poor, ignorant, well-meaning, deluded people— 
when that man poisons the wells of truth with his lying 
pen, and stirs up the muddy dregs of human nature with 
his evil genius? He must be got out of the way before 
idealism gets a chance. What’s the use of trying to get 
peace into this war-fevered world when that man, week by 


330 Heirs Apparent 

week, insults friendly nations, enrages unfriendly nations, 
and stokes up the old hell fires? I leave out of account the 
other side of the paper, all that divorce stuff, all that dis¬ 
gusting sex stuff. I take no notice of that.” 

He waved his hand as though rejecting an obscene ob¬ 
ject. 

“What I will not tolerate is this man’s deliberate and per¬ 
sistent policy of international hate, his appeal to the cruelties 
that lurk in every human heart, the devilish promptings of 
racial enmity. That paper of his has a circulation of some¬ 
thing like two millions, and it’s read by three times that 
number. It’s the most terrific organ of opinion that gets 
to the Mob Mind in this country, and the poor bloody Mob 
is fed on that carrion week by week, so that its eyes are 
blinded to truth and its ears deaf to all reasonable and 
ennobling words. Men like me who are struggling to kill 
the war spirit, and to raise humanity a little higher than 
the ape, can’t compete with the forces against us when 
they’re captured and controlled by that horrible Old Man 
with his false bonhomie, his false patriotism, his false love 
of sport and outdoor life, his false defence of popular lib¬ 
erties, his blasphemous hypocrisy.” 

Julian was silent. He could put up no defence for Victor 
Buckland. He agreed with every word spoken by this pas¬ 
sionate crusader. But he thought of his father, the right- 
hand man of Victor Buckland, and was stricken with the 
thought. 

Henry Caffyn spoke more quietly. 

“I have one personal reason for intending to destroy him, 
though I said otherwise. Do you see that portrait on the 
mantelpiece? Not a bad looking boy, eh? A brilliant chap, 
and the pride of my life. My son, Perryam, killed on the 
Somme, in T7. One day I’ll let you read his letters from 
the Front, if they wouldn’t bore you. Good letters, which 
used to make me weep out of silly old eyes. He believed 
he was fighting for great ideals—the death of militarism, 
the defence of civilisation and Christendom. He had a 
spiritual love for England, and for all that England means 
in honour and fair play and decency. Willingly he offered 


Heirs Apparent 331 

up his life for all that. . . . And when he was killed, I 
dedicated my rotten old life, any power I have in my pen, 
my immortal soul, to help forward his ideals, which were 
shared by the best of the youth that died, in their simple, 
inarticulate, instinctive way. That man Buckland has 
thwarted me, and all of us. He has betrayed the dead. He 
is infecting the living with his pestilential breath. I’ve 
marked him down, and will not rest until I’ve put him out 
of harm’s way.” 

He paced up and down the room, not looking at Julian, 
speaking rapidly, in a low voice. 

“He has great friends. They will try to save him. 
They’ve hobnobbed with him, taken his racing tips, got 
involved in his financial deals, applauded him in public as 
a great patriot. They’ll be frightened of their own names and 
skins. They’ll be scared of the great show-up. Well, to hell 
with them all! I’ll fight the whole crowd of them until 
either this man is broken or I’m broken. And I don’t think 
it’s going to be me! Presently these friends of his will begin 
to run like rats. They’ll be the first to disown him. They’ll 
join the hounds. I know ’em!” 

He was silent after that, and lit his pipe again, and 
glanced once or twice at Julian who sat staring at the 
floor. 

“Meanwhile,” said Julian, presently, “I’m out of a job.” 

He explained that he had left The Week and had tried 
to persuade his father to leave it. 

Henry Caffyn was startled by that news. He had not 
realised that Julian had worked for the paper. 

“Your father ought to take your advice,” he said. “He’d 
do well to follow your example, young fellow.” 

“He believes in loyalty,” said Julian. “Honour in dis¬ 
honour, and all that.” 

“Fudge!” said Henry Caffyn. 

He was thoughtful and silent again, stroking his old pipe 
with his thin, nervous fingers. 

“Look here. If you’re out of a job—” 

He went to his table and shifted the bowl of roses and 
wrote a letter in a dashing hand. 


332 Heirs Apparent 

It was an introduction for Julian to the London editor 
of an American newspaper. 

“He’s rather taken with my idea for an International 
League of Youth! Anyhow, he’s a good chap and keen 
on ‘uplift’ as he calls it. He was asking me the other day 
for a bright young fellow who could do English Sport for 
the American Press. Any good to you?” 

“Lots of good,” said Julian. 

“Clean stuff,” said Henry Caffyn. “No harm in it any¬ 
how.” 

He put his hand on Julian’s shoulder. 

“Don’t you worry about your father. I’m told he’s kept 
clear of the Old Man’s finance. And I’ll help you all I 
know. Anything to rescue a young soul from that sink 
of iniquity! Have a drink?” 

Julian had a drink, and felt a little comforted. 


XXXIX 


M RS. PERRYAM came up to town with Janet and 
had tea in her son’s rooms. The presence of Stokes 
Prichard, who had asked for the afternoon off from his 
office in order to grace the occasion with his presence, 
helped Julian a good deal, because it kept the conversation 
away from realities and enforced a social pretence that 
everything was merry and bright, with nothing more serious 
in life than the burning of the tea-cakes by Prichard who 
miscalculated the heat of the little gas oven. 

Prichard was thoroughly pleased with himself, apart 
from that regrettable incident, and did not suspect for a 
moment that the beauty of his new lounge suit, the ami¬ 
ability of his conversation, and the gallantry of his manners 
were somewhat wasted on these people whose nerves were 
on edge with private tragedy. Not altogether wasted, per¬ 
haps. This boy with the crinkly hair was so gay and so 
thoroughly satisfied with life and himself that it was im¬ 
possible not to play up a little to his “parlour tricks,” as 
Julian called them, and to feel a little reflected warmth 
from the sunshine of his presence. Mrs. Perryam and 
Janet seemed to feel that, though Julian had difficulty in 
concealing his gloom. They were both marvellous, he 
thought,—especially Janet, whom he had not seen since that 
morning when she had sat in this room in a state of moral 
and mental collapse. She looked ill and weak to the search¬ 
ing glance he gave her, and there was something about 
her eyes which made him believe that she had been weeping 
a good deal, but she responded to Prichard’s gallantries 
with a spirit which was rather shocking to Julian, who was 
tempted to think that she was a heartless little hussy and 
not worth all the worry he had given her. Did she know 
about Cyril’s flight with Evelyn? He had not written to 
her with that news, afraid of dealing such a mortal blow 

333 


334 Heirs Apparent 

to her pride. But they must know now at Gorse Hill. The 
whole neighbourhood would be whispering about Evelyn 
Iffield’s desertion of her husband. His father would have 
told his mother about Cyril. It was almost certain that his 
mother had told Janet. Yet there they were, both of 
them, talking and laughing with young Prichard as though 
there were no skeletons in the family cupboard. He 
watched his mother. She was very smart in her town¬ 
going clothes—adorably good-looking, as usual, with a 
playful smile in her eyes as she poured out the tea and 
chaffed Prichard because of his forgetful behaviour with 
the tea-cakes. “Like Alfred!” she said, inevitably, but with 
a jolly laugh that enriched the stale old joke. She thought 
the rooms were “frightfully quaint/’ and told Prichard and 
Julian that they were jolly lucky to have such sumptuous 
apartments. 

“Why, when I was first married, with Julian as a baby, 
we had smaller rooms than these in the wilds of Brixton! 
You modern young people begin at the wrong end of life— 
luxury first. You’re spoilt—the whole crowd of you!” 

Did she know—did she realise—that the family fortunes 
were in jeopardy and that in a little while, if Victor Buck- 
land went down with The Week, all her little luxuries at 
Gorse Hill, the very flowers in her garden which she wor¬ 
shipped, would have to be left for the miserable squalor 
of some cheap suburb as bad as Brixton or worse? She 
did not reveal the thought of such a gloomy prospect by 
the flicker of an eyelid. She looked perfectly secure, serene 
and gay. Julian felt disconcerted, angry, and irritable, be¬ 
cause of this laughing indifference to his father’s fate, 
Janet’s unhappiness, and his own heart-break. She didn’t 
care a damn! She refused to take a serious view of 
things. . . . 

“Let’s have a look at your bedroom, Julian,” she said 
presently. “I’ll bet it’s shamefully untidy, unless your old 
woman is able to create order out of chaos.” 

Janet was sitting next to Stokes Prichard with an album 
of snap-shots between them—mostly Oxford scenes with 
Julian in the pictures. 


Heirs Apparent 335 

'‘Perfectly tidy, mother,” said Julian. 

She went into his room, and without one glance at it, 
shut the door quietly behind her, while all the mirth went 
out of her eyes. 

“Julian!” she said in a low voice. “My poor boy! What 
dreadful things have been happening!” 

“Which things?” he asked. “There are such a damn lot 
of them!” 

His lips trembled. For two pins or less he could have 
cried like a baby. 

“Janet—and you—and father,” she said. “Everything 
seems to be slipping at once. I’m scared out of my wits. 
What does it all mean?” 

“God’s got a grudge against us,” said Julian bitterly. 

“No, not God, old boy,” said Mrs. Perryam, “the Devil. 
. . . Perhaps Grandfather was right. . . . Our house was 
built on sand, without principles, without religion. It’s all 
my fault. I’ve been a rotter. I ought to be whipped!” 

She sat on the edge of Julian’s bed and dabbed her eyes 
with a little lace handkerchief. 

“Your fault?” asked Julian astounded. “Rot!” 

“If it hadn’t been for me,” she said, “your father wouldn’t 
have gone on working for The Week. He would have 
chucked it long ago—he loathed it like poison.” 

“A pity he didn’t,” said Julian. 

Mrs. Perryam gave a little whimper at the pity of things. 

“During the last few years it’s been a torture to him. 
But I was all for Success. The house at Gorse Hill, all 
the servants, my beautiful gardens—the fun of being an 
Important Lady! And I always hated the old days of 
poverty and uncertainty. Brixton! . . . My word! . . .” 

“I don’t blame you,” said Julian. But his mother con¬ 
tinued to blame herself. 

“I egged on poor old Daddy. Julian must go to Win¬ 
chester and Oxford. Janet must go to a foreign school. 
I must get my frocks at Redfern’s. We must live up to 
our position. Oh, that damned Position! . . . It’s all come 
of that. If I hadn’t played at being a great lady, I might 
have looked after you and Janet better. She wouldn’t have 


336 Heirs Apparent 

gone off to night clubs with bad young men who play fast 
and loose. She wouldn’t have fallen in with a rotten crowd. 
I was worried about her, but I thought it was all right, 
because other girls were doing the same thing. I didn’t 
want to be frumpish, with the morals of the Brixton Road 
and Grandfather’s Baptist Chapel. . . . Well, now I know! 
I blame myself for everything.” 

She wept a little and tried to control herself by twisting 
the tassels of Julian’s coverlet. 

“That’s all bunk!” said Julian. “You’ve been the best 
mother in the world. Do you think we’d have been any 
different if the Governor had stayed in the Brixton Road, 
or if you’d lugged us off to Grandfather’s chapel for hymn- 
howling exercises? We should have revolted against it 
just the same. Janet would have flirted with some boy 
she picked up in the local cinema. I should have made an 
ass of myself with a girl clerk or a little shop girl. It’s 
not your fault, mater! It’s the fault of life. It’s human 
nature at work, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever 
shall be—plus a few additional risks due to the self-conceit 
of the Young Idea.” 

Mrs. Perry am wiped away her tears and smiled a little. 

“You’re getting very wise in your old age! Anyhow, 
I’m glad you defend your wicked old mother.” 

Julian sat on the bed by her side and held her hand. 

“Wicked!” he said, and put her hand to his lips. 

He asked about Janet. Had she heard about Cyril and 
Evelyn ? 

His voice faltered. 

“I told her,” said Mrs. Perryam. “She’s been crying 
for a week.” 

“He’s a damned good riddance!” said Julian, with a 
sudden rage in his voice. “Fancy if she had married the 
swine!” 

“Yes!” said Mrs. Perryam. “And it wasn’t my fault that 
she didn’t. There I am again, you see! At the bottom 
of everything!” 

Presently she looked into Julian’s eyes, as though search¬ 
ing the state of his mind. 


Heirs Apparent 337 

“I’m sorry about Evelyn,” she said. “You’ve had a bad 
time, old boy! . . . But that’s another escape.” 

“Not for Evelyn,” said Julian, in a low voice. “I can’t 
bear to think of it. With that beast!” 

He rose from the bed and went to the window and stifled 
the agony of his groan. 

Then he turned round and spoke quietly. 

“We had better go back to the next room. Prichard will 
wonder what we’re doing.” 

Mrs. Perryam agreed. 

She hesitated a moment, and then put her hand on 
Julian’s arm and said, “We shall want a lot of pluck, old 
boy. I’m scared about Daddy. He doesn’t sleep at nights.” 

“Tell him to chuck The Week” said Julian. 

Mrs. Perryam shook her head. “He’s queer about that. 
He insists on loyalty to the Old Man—now that he’s threat¬ 
ened. Have you heard the latest?” 

“No,” said Julian, and his heart gave a thump. 

“The Public Prosecutor is getting busy. Those articles 
in Verity — The Old Man is to be brought up at the Old 
Bailey.” 

Julian drew a deep breath. So Henry Caflyn had won 
the first round! Then he asked an urgent question. 

“What about father?” 

“He’s all right as far as the law is concerned,” said Mrs. 
Perryam. “They’re satisfied he had no share in the Vic¬ 
tory Bond scheme.” 

“Thank God for that!” said Julian. 

They went into the next room. Stokes Prichard and 
Janet were laughing over the album of snap shots. There 
was a remarkable photograph of Julian swimming in a 
straw hat after being upset in Prichard’s canoe. 

“Supercilious even in the river!” said Janet, with a gaiety 
which seemed so natural that Julian was almost deceived. 

“What a look of heroic resignation!” said Mrs. Perryam, 
laughing at the picture. They stayed half an hour longer, 
chatting merrily. There was no other chance of private 
conversation, but Julian arranged to go down to Gorse Hill 
for the week-end. 


338 Heirs Apparent 

“Bring Mr. Prichard;” said Mrs. Perryam, with a glance 
at Janet. “You young people can get some tennis.” 

“I’m yearning for it!” said Prichard. “Thanks a million 
times.” 

Half way down the stairs Janet remembered that she had 
left her handkerchief in Julian’s room. 

“Come and help me find it,” she asked him. It was a 
trick to get a private word with him. 

“Oh, Julian!” she said, when they were alone together. 
“That little cat Evelyn! She’s played a vile game with 
both of us.” 

“I blame Cyril,” said Julian. “He’s the lowest kind of 
cad.” 

Janet had no good reason to defend Cyril, but she raged 
against Evelyn. 

“She had the eyes of a cat, and the ways of a cat. Sly 
and sleek. I always suspected her. She was always after 
Cyril, tempting him, playing with him. Just like she played 
with you.” 

“Well, the game’s finished now,” said Julian bitterly. 
“You and I pay, old girl. ... Now there’s this business 
about the Governor.” 

“I wish I were dead!” said Janet, and she gave a little 
cry, with her hands up to her face. 

He said “Hush! Hush!” and waited while she recovered 
herself well enough to go downstairs again. 

Prichard was ecstatic to Julian when Mrs. Perryam and 
Janet had gone. 

“That sister of yours, old man! I’m utterly smitten. 
And that amazingly beautiful mother! Some people are 
born with all the luck.” 

“Yes,” said Julian. “And some aren’t.” 

He was looking out of window at a newsboy coming 
up York Street. His contents bill was flapping in the wind, 
but Julian read the words as he stood for a moment at the 
corner of John Street. 

“Serious Charge Against Victor Buckland.” 


XL 


HE trial of Victor Buckland lasted for a week, and 



A the Court was crowded by barristers, journalists, 
racing men, advertising men, and the general public, ex¬ 
cited by this drama in which one of the most notorious 
figures of English life played the central and tragic part. 
Mr. Perry am was under subpoena as a witness, but never 
called by either side, though it meant that he had to attend 
the Court every day. Julian was with him, at the urgent 
request of his mother, and sat through that long and dreary 
trial in which the evidence was mainly arithmetical and 
entirely devoid of sensation except for the figure of that 
man who stepped down from the dock and conducted his 
own case from the solictors’ table. The newspapers made 
the most of the case, and especially of “breezes” between 
Victor Buckland and the Attorney General or Victor Buck- 
land and the Judge, but in Court these incidents hardly 
broke the awful monotony of dulness which settled heavily 
upon Julian’s mind. He could not pretend to understand 
the arithmetic. He could not follow the Old Man’s cross- 
examination of the witnesses called by the Crown nor see 
the point of his sudden outbursts of indignation when the 
Judge allowed certain evidence to be put in. To Julian, as 
to many others in Court perhaps, the drama—until the last 
day—was confined to the character study of that tall, heavy 
figure with puffed eyes and massive face who for ten years 
had claimed to represent the people of England, and who, 
in fact, had played upon the instincts and passions of the 
Mob Mind with a sure touch and some kind of genius. For 
Julian there was an intense personal and painful interest in 
the study of this man, in the play of expression on his flabby 
face, in his gestures, sighs, smiles, moments of rage and 
irritation, gloomy pauses, hesitations, blusterings, blandness. 

“My father,” thought Julian, “was macP by that man. 


339 


340 Heirs Apparent 

Master and man! . . . He's our benefactor, blast him! 
Gorse Hill wouldn’t have existed without him. I shouldn’t 
have gone to Oxford but for his success. Even now, if he 
goes down, we all go down.” 

Then again. 

“That man is the father of Cyril. The father of that 
beast!” 

Julian watched him intently. Was he conscious of guilt? 
It was hard to. say. There were times when he smiled at 
the weakness of the case against him, when he ridiculed 
points of evidence with a kind of bland assurance in his per¬ 
fect honesty of intention and act. Either he was a great actor 
or he believed in his own innocence and righteousness. Julian 
inclined to think that he was not acting, not lying even when 
he denied the desire to obtain this money subscribed by his 
readers for any fraudulent intent. To him it was merely 
a sporting risk which he had placed before his readers, a 
gambler’s chance of great prizes. The law said it was 
illegal. More fool the law! They had tried to prove that 
he had converted the money to his own use. That was for 
them to prove. Impossible to prove, as he would show by 
incontrovertible figures. . . . Occasionally—very rarely— 
his assurance left him for a moment. A troubled look came 
into his eyes. His fat fingers fumbled at the top button of 
his white waistcoat or trembled as he held his pince-nez. 
It was when the Judge asked a series of questions, very 
quietly, in a cold, enquiring voice. 

“Perhaps you will tell us, Mr. Buckland, why it is that 
you concealed that transaction from the Insurance Com¬ 
pany? 

“It did not occur to you to mention the fact ? But surely, 
as a business man, as a man of expert financial knowledge, 
your conduct of this case proves that without doubt it must 
have been in your mind at the time as a most essential fact ? 

“You considered it irrelevant? That is the answer you 
wish to make? 

“Very well!” 

That “Very well!” seemed to Julian to contain a very 
damning threat to that Old Man whose answers to the 


Heirs Apparent 341 

Judge had been rather hesitating. And it seemed that old 
Buckland was aware of some trap that had opened beneath 
his feet. Or perhaps of some hole of escape that had been 
blocked up. His eyes roved toward the jury, uneasily. 
It was to them that he turned very often, with a smile, as 
though to say, “You and I are men of the world. Sports¬ 
men. We like our little flutter. You and I understand each 
other. You know old Victor Buckland. The Soldier’s 
Friend in the war. The enemy of Cant, Killjoys, Pro- 
Huns, Bolsheviks, Cranks. This absurd old Judge! This 
ridiculous Attorney General!” 

Julian watched the Judge. What %delicate hands he had 
—almost transparent! And how gracefully he handled his 
long scarlet robe as he came into Court. He seemed to 
belong to the Eighteenth Century, aloof from the modern, 
vulgar, noisy world. His thin voice was perfectly modu¬ 
lated. His pale blue eyes seemed to look with contempt 
at that crowded gallery filled with racing tipsters, the riff¬ 
raff who had followed Victor Buckland as a prophet. His 
delicate, clear-cut face might have been a cameo on an old 
snuff-box. . . . Once or twice his eyes rested on Victor 
Buckland with a searching gaze, as though trying to pene¬ 
trate to the mind behind that heavy mask. Once, and only 
once, he spoke angrily, with a sudden passion in his voice, 
leaning forward with a gesture of indignation. 

“I do not allow that question to the witness. It is a most 
scandalous suggestion of political motives in this trial which 
is unwarranted by any evidence. I shall take notice of that 
in my summing up.” 

“I beg your Lordship’s pardon,” said Mr. Buckland, “but 
I must insist upon putting that question to the witness. 
It is extremely important to my case.” 

The Judge’s lips tightened. 

“I have disallowed that question, Mr. Buckland. If you 
try to put it, you will be taking a grave risk.” 

“Begging your Lordship’s pardon—” 

“I have warned you, sir.” 

The warning was effective. Victor Buckland breathed 
rather loudly, shrugged his heavy shoulders, smiled uneasily 


342 Heirs Apparent 

at the jury, and put a different question to the witness. In 
his sombre eyes there was a baffled look. . . . 

At the end of the fourth day he looked tired and harried. 
His face was greyer and his lips twitched. He seemed to 
be breaking under the strain of the Attorney General’s 
cross-examination. Several times he seemed to Julian like 
an animal at bay, trapped in a net, unable to break through 
its meshes. But even then, on that fourth day, which was 
his great ordeal, his terrific will power, or some faith in his 
star, enabled him to mask his sense of fear for all but those 
brief moments of revelation when he moistened his lips 
with a parched tongue, wiped beads of sweat from his fore¬ 
head, stared at his torturer—the cool, stem figure of the 
Attorney General—with rage and agony. 

“Henry Caffyn has won,” thought Julian. “This man is 
lost. What will happen then ? What about my father, and 
all of us?” 

He was torn by two conflicting forces. The desire to see 
this Old Man dragged down from his place in English life, 
unmasked to the people he had duped and cheated; pity 
and fear for his own father. 

Mr. Perryam sat all day long almost motionless by 
Julian’s side, listening to the evidence intently, with a puz¬ 
zled look as though desperately endeavouring to get a clue 
to this labyrinth of figures. Hardly once did he take his 
gaze from the face of Victor Buckland. He seemed fas¬ 
cinated and spellbound by that man who had been his evil 
genius and his paymaster. Julian heard his father sigh 
noisily now and then or draw a quick breath when the evi¬ 
dence went against his Chief. Towards the end of the 
third day he fell into the nervous habit of jigging his rig’X 
knee up and down ceaselessly. 

Julian saw two familiar faces in Court, day by day, listen¬ 
ing intently. One was Henry Caffyn, who had forced the 
Public Prosecutor to take action in this case. The other 
was Horace Burton, news editor of The Week. 

At lunch time Mr. Perryam was very silent as a rule and 
did not eat the food he ordered. 


Heirs Apparent 343 

“How do you think it's going?” asked Julian at the end 
of the fourth day. 

His father asked another question in return. 

“What's your impression, sonny?” 

“I think they’ll get him,” said Julian. 

His father sighed and said, “The Judge is against him. 
He’s done this time.” 

As they walked back to the Old Bailey he leaned heavily 
on Julian’s arm. 

“It’s the end of me too, Julian. I’m disgraced. The 
Editor of The Week. Buckland’s man. I’ll never live that 
down. . . . Well, I deserve it. I ought to have left him 
—years ago!” 

“You ought to leave him now,” said Julian heatedly. 
“Why do you still go to that cursed office?” 

Mr. Perryam pressed his arm. 

“It’s not the time to leave him now—when all the world’s 
against him. All those people who fawned on him. All 
those dogs who were greedy for the offal he gave them. 
All his racing friends, and newspaper friends, and adver¬ 
tising touts, and ^political crooks, and titled swine. They’ve 
run from him, tumbling over each other to deny their 
friendship with him. They’re all ready to howl in chorus 
when the trial’s over, ‘The most malign influence in Eng¬ 
lish life,’ ‘The most corrupt old scoundrel in the country!’ 
I can hear their talk at the very tables where they lunched 
and dined with him and drunk his wine and asked him to 
let them in on the latest gamble. The corner of the Savoy 
grill-room! . . . No, now is not the time to leave him.” 

Julian was moved by this loy lty of his father to a man 
whom he had always hated and despised. It was nobler 
anyhow than the “ratting” of the Old Man’s other friends. 
They ratted from his father too, because of that loyalty and 
his position on The Week. Julian noticed that, and'flushed 
red with rage. It was when he was lunching with his 
father at Gatti’s in the Strand. At a table near them 
were two of the men who had been at that luncheon-party 
in the Savoy—the only lunch that Julian had had with 


344 Heirs Apparent 

Victor Buckland. One was the advertising manager of a 
great millinery firm, the other a new Peer. They had both 
laughed loudest at the Old Man’s blue stories. When they 
saw Mr. Perryam, they put their heads closer and whis¬ 
pered. When he nodded to them their lips tightened and 
they stared over his head. Julian noticed that his father 
was embarrassed and hurt, though he did not say a word 
about it. 

He stayed at a hotel in Norfolk Street Strand during the 
progress of the trial, and Julian went round and dined with 
him as a rule, and stayed smoking after f dinner until ten 
o’clock when Mr. Perryam said, “Time to turn in, old boy!” 

They avoided the subject of the trial as far as possible, 
though always it was in their minds. But one evening, 
towards the end of the week, the day before Victor Buck- 
land was to make his speech in defence, Mr. Perryam spoke 
to his son almost as though the trial had ended. Julian 
noticed that he talked about Victor Buckland in the past 
tense as though he were dead. 

“He had his good points,” he said. “The world will only 
remember the bad side of his character and his downfall, 
but I remember other things. He was generous. A tale 
of woe always made him put his hand in his pocket. He 
really loved the masses in his crude, showman kind of way. 
It wasn’t all hypocrisy. Perhaps not* at all—consciously. 
He wept at the losses in the war and would do anything 
for the men. Of course he played up the war for all it 
was worth, and banged the big drum, and roared out the 
Song of Hate, but that was his idea of patriotism. He 
was a crude, ignorant, brutal man, but with a strain of 
sincerity and genuine emotion. We must allow him that. 
And yet, I suppose he was a hypocrite too!—just as some 
quack doctors or spiritualist fakers are half frauds with an 
eye to the main chance but with an underlying credulity 
in their own claims. A bully at times, and utterly immoral 
in all financial matters. Oh, a scoundrel all right, but I 
think now of the qualities which made him a human instead 
of an inhuman monster. I think it was that human side 


Heirs Apparent 345 

which blinded me to my own dishonour.. I mean it made 
me find excuses for service with him.” 

At another time he alluded to Cyril. 

“The Old Man idolised that boy of his. Tm told by his 
solicitor that his biggest grief, apart from standing in the 
dock, is the utter silence of his son. The young scoundrel 
hasn't written a line, or sent a message, or shown up in 
Court.” 

Julian was silent, thinking of Evelyn, and his father made 
his nerves jump by referring to her. 

“That young woman who went away with him will rue 
the day. What incredible folly! What tragedy in the 
future!” 

He was silent for quite a time, brooding over his 
thoughts. 

Then he looked up at Julian with wistful eyes, full of 
tenderness and emotion. 

“I'm afraid it’s up to you, Julian, now! My day’s done. 
I shall never get another job. Nothing worth while, any¬ 
how. Perhaps a sub-editorship on ten pounds a week—if 
I’m lucky! You’ll have to buckle to and help to support 
your mother and Janet. Poor darlings! . . . Poor dar¬ 
lings! They won’t like poverty. . . . Janet has never 
known it.” 

“You’ll get another job all right,” said Julian cheerfully, 
“with your ability and experience, father!” 

But he spoke insincerely. In his heart he believed that 
his father’s pessimism was justified. 

Mr. Perryam shook his head and said, “Not a chance, 
old son. I know Fleet Street.” 

Before going to bed he made one more remark about 
Victor Buckland. 

“The Old Man is still pinning his faith on an acquittal. 
He believes he will get the jury with him to-morrow in his 
final speech, so the solicitor tells me. It’s his desperate 
hope.” 

“What do you think?” asked Julian. 

Mr. Perryam’s answer showed that he had made up his 


346 Heirs Apparent 

mind about that trial to which he had been listening with 
strained attention through its jungle of figures. 

‘There’s only one verdict, Julian. Guilty as Hell.” 

And yet on the following day Julian was not at all cer¬ 
tain that this would be the verdict. Victor Buckland’s 
speech to the jury was a tremendous efifort of oratory and 
emotion. The Old Man had pulled himself together and 
called up all his reserves of passion, fire, blufif, and crafti¬ 
ness. Julian could see that the jury were shaken. After 
a masterly analysis of the arithmetic of the case which for 
the first time seemed to be simple, comprehensible, and con¬ 
vincing, and a display of legal knowledge which obviously 
disconcerted the Attorney General and his juniors, the Old 
Man swept all that on one side by an appeal to the jury 
to arrive at their verdict not on legal subtleties or conflict¬ 
ing figures, but on their judgment of his motives, his char¬ 
acter, and his reputation. Had he not served his country 
with more fidelity than most men could claim? In time of 
war had he not been the Soldier’s Friend? He had organ¬ 
ised a vast scheme of comforts for the troops. He had 
devoted himself to the interests of poor old Tommy Atkins 
in the trenches. He had unmasked the abominations of 
their Enemy. He had been the greatest recruiting agency 
in the Kingdom, lighting the fires of patriotism and loyalty, 
keeping them burning in the heart of the people until Vic¬ 
tory was assured. Was it likely that he of all men would 
desire to defraud the people he had loved? Was it con¬ 
ceivable that he should use his power and popularity to 
obtain their money under false pretences? He pointed to 
the record of The Week —its noble service to humanity, its 
campaigns against villainy and vice, its consistent stand on 
the side of the angels. It had defended the sanctity of 
home life—“the safety of your wives and daughters, gen¬ 
tlemen of the jury!”—it had upheld the liberties of Eng¬ 
land against the kill-joys who wished to deprive the work¬ 
ing man of Beer and the middle classes of simple pleasures; 
it had been inspired by the spirit of God in its reverence 
for religion, and its love of the oppressed, the weak, the 
down-trodden. 


Heirs Apparent 347 

“Is it imaginable, is it within the bounds of sanity, that 
I, the founder of that paper, its guiding mind, the director 
of its policy—its weekly Voice, speaking from the heart of 
Truth to the soul of the English People, should be guilty 
of this corrupt act with which I stand falsely charged? 
Gentlemen of the Jury, you may not understand arithmetic, 
all those fantastic figures with which the Attorney General 
juggled so skilfully, but as men of the world and honest 
citizens you understand the ordinary laws of human nature. 
Those laws would be violated if I, a Patriot and a Friend 
of Man, should betray my whole life of honour and devo¬ 
tion by a low and dirty fraud. They would be outraged, 
and the very Angels of the Lord would weep with shame 
and grief, if, by horrible injustice, or inconceivable cruelty, 
a verdict of guilty should be brought against me, as I stand 
here facing not only a jury of twelve of my fellow citizens, 
but the jury of the nation which I have served with love, 
with passion, with self-sacrifice.” 

His voice broke for a moment, and he wept before them. 

Julian felt moved for the first time by pity. The sight 
of that old man’s tears seemed to curdle his blood. Per¬ 
haps he really believed in his own honour and honesty. 
It was impossible that any man should be so colossal a 
hypocrite as to speak like that without revealing his insin¬ 
cerity. One of the jury turned red with emotion. The 
others sat watching Victor Buckland with troubled eyes. 
Julian glanced at the Judge. He too was looking at the 
Old Man, weeping there, but there was no compassion in 
his pale blue eyes, and a faintly contemptuous smile played 
for a moment on that delicate face which Julian saw in 
profile framed in its great wig. 

When Victor Buckland sat down after two hours there 
was an uneasy stir in Court, a murmur of applause sternly 
hushed, the movement of reporters sending out their slips. 

The Attorney General spoke again, but briefly, and then 
sat down and awaited the Judge’s summing up. If the ver¬ 
dict had been given before that summing up it might have 
been in favour of Victor Buckland, but not afterwards. It 
was deadly in its analysis and weighed heavily against that 


348 Heirs Apparent 

Old Man who had gone back to the dock and sat there 
frowning heavily, with a face that grew more sombre and 
seemed to be touched by death’s pallor, as the Judge’s words 
flowed on in a quiet damning monologue. 

Towards the end of it Julian turned to his father. Mr. 
Perryam was as pale as the Old Man. There was a clammy 
moisture on his forehead. 

“Let’s go,” he said. “I feel a little faint.” 

They managed to get through the swing doors and a 
policeman helped Mr. Perryam to a stone seat in the 
entrance hall, where he sat with his head bowed. 

“Better get in the fresh air,” said the policeman. “Very 
muggy in here.” ^ i? V 

“No,” said Mr. Perryam, “I must * wait for the verdict. 
I shall have to see him afterwards.” 

“Good Lord, no!” said Julian. “For Heaven’s sake—” 

Mr. Perryam said something about “Duty” and “Com¬ 
mon humanity.” 

It was two hours before the verdict was given by the 
jury. Julian heard it from the policeman who had opened 
the swing doors half an inch and stood there listening. He 
turned his head slightly and looked at Julian, and whis¬ 
pered a word, the most terrible word. 

“Guilty!” 

Then he listened again. Through the crack of the door 
Julian could hear the Judge’s voice, speaking in a mono¬ 
logue again. There was a brief silence, followed by the stir 
of the Court rising, a low murmur of voices, a scuffle of 
feet in the galleries. 

The swing door was opened wide, and several counsel 
hurried out with papers. A reporter dodged them, and ran 
into the central hall, and out through the swing doors 
beyond. 

Julian tried to ask the policeman what the sentence was, 
but other barristers and journalists passed between them. 

“Well, I expected it,” said one of the barristers. “Bound 
to make an example of him. Poor old devil!” 

A journalist was fumbling with his notes. He seemed 
to have lost a sheet. Julian asked him a question. 


Heirs Apparent 349 

“What's the sentence?" 

“Seven years! . . . Damned stiff! . . . That's the end of 
The Week all right!” 

Horace Burton, the news editor, came out with the lawyer 
whom Julian had seen in his father’s room. They looked 
around for Mr. Perryam, and saw him standing with his 
hands behind his back, staring at the stone floor in an 
absent-minded way. 

Julian heard the lawyer’s words to his father. 

“He wants to see you, sir.” 

“What’s the sentence?” asked Mr. Perryam. 

The lawyer told him, and shrugged his shoulders. 

“Of course he’ll appeal. There’s just a chance.” 

“No chance,” said Mr. Perryam harshly. “Don’t let's 
deceive ourselves.” 

He looked about for Julian, and beckoned him. 

“I expect I shall be half an hour. Don’t wait, old 
boy.” 

“I’ll wait,” said Julian. 

He watched his father walk away with the lawyer and 
disappear through one of the swing doors. He walked 
heavily, with his hand on the lawyer’s arm, as though 
needing support. 

Horace Burton stayed with Julian. 

“Well, that’s that!” he said, and laughed nervously. 

Julian answered irritably. 

“You seem to find it amusing.” 

“No,” said Burton, “it makes me feel sick. Now it’s all 
over I’m sorry for the old villain. I hate to see animals 
tortured. . . . Seven years! Worse than death for a man 
like that.” 

He looked at Julian with his evasive eyes, and after a 
short silence spoke again: 

“It’s a bad blow for your father. The Week is bound to 
go under. The Public won’t stand for it now. Our returns 
are colossal already, and the bookstalls are getting shy. ... 
I’m looking for another job.” 

He gave his nervous laugh again. 

“On the streets for the third time! My wife is feeling 


350 Heirs Apparent 

pretty rotten about it. Journalism, eh? Charming pro- 
f ession!” 

He stood there talking bitterly to Julian and once or 
twice seemed to find some comfort in thinking that he had 
“warned” Julian of the abominations of the Street. 

“That morning you joined up ! I told you what to expect. 
Here’s another little victim, I thought. Little does he know! 
Well, I told you, didn’t I?” 

Julian felt tempted to tell him that he was one of the 
men who degraded journalism to its lowest level. But this 
was no time for personal argument. He was thinking of 
the scene that must be taking place between his father and 
the Old Man. A horrible half hour! Would his father 
curse him for having dragged him down and caused his 
ruin and disgrace? That verdict and sentence had brought 
them both low after the success they had built up together. 
The Old Man would have to serve his seven years. He 
would still be rich if he came out again. Cyril would never 
have to do a stroke of work. He could keep Evelyn all 
right. . . . But Julian’s father would lose everything he 
had struggled for during a life time of toil. He had sold 
himself to Victor Buckland for a good price and now there 
would be no more payment. The contract was finished, and 
his father was left stranded because of the Old Man’s vil¬ 
lainy. They would all have to pay for that. His mother, 
and Janet, and himself. Good-bye, Gorse Hill! It was 
ruin for the whole family. Father and son, those Buck- 
lands had played the devil with the Perryam household. 
Disgrace, tragedy, and shame had come with them. 

“We’re in the mud,” thought Julian. “And all because 
of that old swine and his son. It’s unfair. It’s damned 
unfair! Why should I be punished for my father’s folly? 
It’s the injustice of life. It’s the cursed absurdity of being 
born.” 

He wished that he had not been born. Standing there 
in the hall of the Old Bailey, he had a grudge against the 
Universe because he was part of it and subject to its 
monstrous unfairness. 


Heirs Apparent 351 

Then he saw his father. He came hack through the 
swing doors, and looked broken and spent. 

“Sorry to have kept you waiting, old boy,” he said in a 
humble way. “Let’s take a taxi.” 

He nodded to Burton, and said something about seeing 
him next day. 

In the cab he took off his hat and wiped his forehead. 

“That poor old man!” he said. “Whatever his guilt, that 
sentence is fearful. It’s a living torture. It will be hell 
on earth to him. Terrible! Terrible! The cruelty of Jus¬ 
tice!” 

At the hotel he ordered a brandy and soda, but did not 
drink it. 

“I feel ill, old boy,” he said to Julian. “I hardly think 
I shall be able to get up to my room.” 

“Why not?” asked Julian, with a sudden sharp anxiety. 

“It is my heart,” said Mr. Perryam. “Queer for a long 
time, old boy. I didn’t say anything. Now this shock—” 

He sat down on the sofa in the lounge and breathed 
heavily, with one hand against his side. 

It was with the hall porter’s help that Julian took him 
upstairs to his room. There he seemed to crumple up 
quite suddenly as he sat back in an arm chair. His left 
arm and leg were twisted and his face stiffened and seemed 
to wither. 

“It’s a stroke,” said the hall porter. “God Almighty!” 


XLI 


S TOKES PRICHARD, Clatworthy, and others were very- 
decent to Julian, he thought, during his time of trouble. 
Mervyn and Burnaby made a point of looking him up, 
inviting him to lunch, when funds were good enough, and 
showing by silence more than by words that they were 
loyal to their friendship. Julian was glad of that. It 
softened some of his bitterness. Morbidly sensitive, he had 
shrunk from the disgrace attached to his father’s name as 
editor of The Week. He had shrunk even from Clat- 
worthy’s greeting in Pall Mall when that young man had 
come face to face with him after the trial. For the twen¬ 
tieth part of a second he had believed that Clatworthy would 
give him “the frozen face” as the son of a man whose .name 
was linked so closely with the Buckland case. He did Clat¬ 
worthy a gross injustice. 

“My dear old man!” said that representative of the 
Younger Crowd. “What a time you’ve been having! You 
look as if one of my extra special cocktails would do you 
all the good in the world. Come round to the Carlton 
and have lunch.” 

“You oughtn’t to be seen about with me,” said Julian. 
“Your father’s name, and all that.” 

Clatworthy had laughed loudly, and made a funny face 
in the middle of Pall Mall, to the great astonishment of an 
American tourist searching for the R.A.C. 

“If you care to be seen in the company of the Missing 
Link, his father’s name will be ennobled.” 

He had linked arms with Julian and talked seriously on 
the way to the Carlton. 

“Don’t get morbid over this affair, old lad. Your father 
comes out of it without a stain. And from what I hear his 
loyalty to poor old Buckland was a shining example. Loy¬ 
alty’s easy when it pays. It’s damned hard—and damned 
good—when a man is down and out—whatever his crime.” 

352 


Heirs Apparent 353 

“Look here,” he said again, pressing Julian’s arm, “keep 
your sense of humour, old kid, and a stiff upper lip against 
the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. That’s the 
English tradition, isn’t it? We like to think so!” 

“At the moment,” said Julian, “my sense of humour has 
gone astray. Life doesn’t seem a little bit funny with a 
paralysed father, a sale of household effects at Gorse Hill, 
Janet crying her eyes out, and the whole family reduced 
to ruin. If you £an see any joke there, tell me!” 

“None whatever at the moment,” agreed Clatworthy. 
“But it will be a jolly good joke when you raise the family 
fortunes again with that brilliant brain of yours, old kid— 
joking apart this time!—dry your pretty sister’s eyes and 
become a shining light of the younger crowd. Prichard and 
I are counting on that. We look to you to play the great 
game.” 

Julian smiled at this optimistic vision. It was one of 
Clatworthy’s absurdities. But all the same it stiffened him 
a little and was comforting. It was something that his 
friends believed in him. He would have a try. He 
wouldn’t show the white feather, anyhow. For the mater’s 
sake, and Janet’s, he would have to get busy. 

Henry Caffyn was helping him to get busy. It was rather 
strange that the author of his father’s downfall—for un¬ 
doubtedly it was Caffyn’s articles that had brought Victor 
Buckland to the dock and smashed The Week —should now 
be going out of his way to help the Perryam family out of 
the ditch, by putting opportunities in Julian’s way, and by 
giving him advice, encouragement, introductions, and ideas. 

On the evening following the Old Man’s condemnation 
he had come down to Julian’s rooms with a troubled look 
behind his pince-nez. No triumph in his keen grey eyes, 
as Julian had expected. 

“You’ve won, sir,” said Julian, rather bitterly. “Perhaps 
it may interest you to know that you’ve not only destroyed 
old Buckland but struck down my father as well. With¬ 
ered him down one side.” 

Henry Caffyn nodded, and looked at Julian with sym¬ 
pathy. 


354 Heirs Apparent 

“I know. Young Prichard told me about your father. 
That’s tragic.” 

"It’s damned unfair,” said Julian. 

The old man—not very old, but with streaks of white in 
his hair and beard—and the boy who looked rather broken 
by too many blows of fate about the head, were silent for 
a little while, each busy with his thoughts. Presently 
Henry Caffyn began to pace up and down in his restless 
nervous way. 

“The innocent suffer for the guilty,” he said at length. 
“That’s one of the inevitabilities of life. In peace as well 
as in war. One strikes at evil, and nine times out of ten 
one’s blows hurt those who have nothing to do with it. 
The thief’s wife and children—decent folk deluded into an 
unjust war, the liberal-minded aristocracy of Czardom, the 
good-meaning, weak-willed King—like old Louis XVI.— 
blameless of a tyrannical system upheld by swine about 
him. It’s always been like that. All the same one has to 
fight evil, though innocence gets hurt.” 

He spoke of Victor Buckland with compassionate emo¬ 
tion. 

“I daresay you think I chortled when that Old Man re¬ 
ceived his sentence? It was my victory, as you sayl My 
dear boy, I can hardly sleep at night for thinking of that 
poor old fellow in his living tomb. If I had the power I 
would unlock his cell to-morrow and say, ‘Get out, and go 
away, anywhere you like, so long as you cease to pollute 
the public mind.’ I hate to see wild animals in a cage, 
though I like hunting them. The man-eating tiger has my 
sympathy when he’s trapped. I’m one of those sentimen¬ 
talists—a humanist I call myself!—who go sick at the sight 
of cells and bolts and bars. I think our modern prison 
system is a more refined kind of torture than the old jails 
of Dickens’ time where there was at least companionship 
in misery and foul air and foul talk less deadening than 
our nice, clean, sanitary, silent hells. No. I’m enormously 
touched with pity for that poor old wretch, now I’ve helped 
to unmask him and destroy his power. But I had to do 
that. For England’s sake. For the sake of any idealism 


Heirs Apparent 355 

that is at work against the forces of hate and corruption 
and sinister cruelty and falsehood. The British Press 
wanted cleansing—it wants a lot more!—and the public 
conscience needed a heavy jolt. It was monstrous that an 
old man like Buckland should be tolerated, flattered, envied, 
and used by the leaders of our political and social life. I 
was determined to get at him, and break him. I rejoice 
that I’ve done so. But I sicken at the thought of his mental 
and physical torture. ... As for your father, I am sorry 
beyond words.” 

Later in the evening he said that if Julian felt like writing 
a series of articles on Oxford life and types—with a light 
touch—he would place them in a magazine edited by one 
of his best friends and get a good price for them. He had 
already mentioned the matter and the editor was keen, hav¬ 
ing the sound notion of encouraging the Young Idea to 
become articulate and state its point of view. 

“We haven’t a point of view,” said Julian. “Except 
flippancy and impatience with all the bunk talked about 
us.” 

“Excellent!” cried Henry Caffyn. “Let’s have that. 
Tremendously valuable.” 

He was wonderfully helpful about those articles, sug¬ 
gesting all kinds of points for Julian’s consideration and 
mapping out a kind of synopsis. He did not spare criti¬ 
cism, and rewrote many paragraphs, not altering the sense, 
but getting rid of the somewhat stilted style which Julian 
adopted now and then, compressing verbose pages, and 
touching up slipshod phrases. 

Better than his criticism to Julian’s temperament was his 
appreciation, his enthusiastic enjoyment of Julian’s most 
bitter and most candid revelations of Youth’s quarrel with 
the Old People, and the mess which they had made of 
things, and their intolerance, and misunderstanding, and 
impatience. 

“By Jumbo! That’s a hard knock!” he exclaimed once 
or twice. 

“That’s a deadly upper cut, my lad!” he said at another 
sitting. “It fairly makes my jaw ache. As one of the Old 


356 Heirs Apparent 

People I feel like lying down on the mat and refusing to 
get up before Fm counted out.” 

He laughed with shrill enjoyment of some of Julian's 
epigrams. 

“Neatly turned! Devilish neat! I couldn’t have said 
that after hours of cogitation. . . . Wow! That’s a good 
’un!” 

Perhaps he exaggerated his pleasure out of kindness of 
heart. Julian suspected that sometimes, but felt that it was 
a good tonic to his moral. He was getting keen on those 
articles—twelve of them—and sat up half the night to write 
them, feeling for the first time the joy of creation, the 
adorable sense of self-expression. This work was lifting 
his depression. Ambition stirred in him, not vaguely now, 
but with a definite goal. It was utterly necessary to earn 
money, and he could no longer fall back on the comfortable 
thought of a weekly allowance from a father who might 
grumble but always “shelled out.” He had got to “make 
good,” as the Americans say, standing on his own feet, and 
support, or at least help to support, the whole family be¬ 
sides. After the sale of the big house at Gorse Hill and 
its furniture, there would not be more than a few thou¬ 
sands to provide for his father and mother, Janet, and old 
Grandfather. He would have now to be the breadwinner, 
for his father was out of it, utterly stricken. 

There were times when Julian was appalled by this 
thought, and when an immense desolation of despair threat¬ 
ened to overwhelm him. There were other times when he 
was panic-stricken. How on earth could he hope to keep 
all these people and himself in even decent poverty by 
scratching words on bits of blank paper? Sometimes the 
words wouldn’t come. For hours at a time he coultjnfjt 
write a line. What he wrote was all wrong, and he«naa 
to tear it up in disgust and start again. But Henry Caffyn’s 
encouragement propped him up, and a cheque for twenty 
pounds for his first two articles was enormously helpful 
to his courage. 

He showed the cheque to Stokes Prichard whose rooms 


Heirs Apparent 357 

he still shared though he would have to clear out on account 
of expense. 

“First fruits!” he said shyly. 

Stokes Prichard was enormously impressed. 

“Twenty quid! Good Lord, old man, if you go on at 
that pace you’ll be a man of wealth! Motor cars again, 
and the flesh pots of Egypt!” 

“It takes a good many articles to make a Metallurgique!” 
said Julian. 

He had sold his car to pay half shares of Prichard’s 
rooms and an outstanding tailor’s bill. It had been a hor¬ 
rible portent of impending poverty. He had almost wept 
over the wheel when he drove his little old car to a garage 
in Longacre. 

And yet he felt curiously cheerful sometimes, far more 
cheerful than when he had been lounging in the garden at 
Gorse Hill or arranging secret meetings with Evelyn Iffleld. 
That was extraordinary, and he failed to understand it. He 
was actually afraid of himself one morning when he caught 
himself singing in his bath. 

“I’m going scranny, or something,” he said. “Why the 
devil should I feel exhilarated—singing like Stokes Prichard 
when he turns on the bath tap—when my poor old gov¬ 
ernor is lying paralysed, and the family fortunes have gone 
crash, and everything has happened to break a fellow’s 
spirit? It’s unnatural. It’s hysteria or something.” 

He spoke to Audrey Nye on the subject. They met for 
lunch sometimes in an A.B.C. shop at Ludgate Hill. 

“You’re looking marvellously well,” she said. “A 
brighter light in your eyes, Julian.” 

He waited until the waitress had deposited the eggs on 
toast, and gone away to another table. 

“I’m getting scared at myself,” he said. “I sang in my 
bath this morning. Do you think I’m sickening for some¬ 
thing ?” 

He spoke half jestingly, but with an underlying sincerity. 

Audrey looked at him searchingly, with smiling eyes. 

“It’s the rebound,” she said. 


358 Heirs Apparent 

Julian did not quite follow that remark, and told her so. 

“Why,” she said, “we can’t wallow in wretchedness, at 
our age. Life asserts itself. I cried for three weeks—in 
private—when we first came to Clapham. Everything 
seemed appalling. Clapham! The semi-detached house. 
Having to make one’s own bed. These A.B.C. lunches. 
After Fuller’s in the Cornmarket! The office! An out-of- 
work father. A melancholy ma. Then one day I began 
to perk up and feel bright. ‘Hell!’ I said, ‘I’m still young, 
and life’s good, in spite of everything. I’m not going to 
wallow. There are a lot of people in the world—Russian 
refugees, Greek refugees, Austrians, Germans in the Ruhr, 
people in Bermondsey and Bow,—who would envy me this 
red brick villa in Clapham, and these poached eggs on toast 
with jam-roll to follow, and my salary from the Labour 
Institute. Am I going to show the white feather when they 
have so much courage? Not very English, old girl!’ After 
that I felt better. But it wasn’t philosophy that helped 
me. It was red blood in young veins. Life breaking out 
of morbid melancholy. I just could not go on being 
wretched.” 

Julian smiled faintly. 

“Possibly,” he said. “But there’s more in it than 
that.” 

Audrey agreed that there was a lot more. Mysterious 
psychological laws. Instinct. Impulse. Self-defence. The 
preservation of the species. Also there was jam-roll, which, 
honestly, was quite as good as one could get at Fuller’s 
in the Cornmarket, unless her appetite was better. 

She suggested another reason why it was impossible to 
pander to misery. 

“One gets bored even with melancholy. The healthy 
human brain refuses to harp on the minor string inter¬ 
minably. It’s so tedious. Then again, if one faces up to 
obstacles and overcomes them, one has a sense of exhilara¬ 
tion. It’s the test of one’s moral fibre. If one passes the 
test without a break-down, it gives one a sense of self- 
reliance, a spiritual glow such as comes to one after a cold 
bath, which is abominably unpleasant in mid-winter.” 


Heirs Apparent 359 

“You find out reasons for things, don’t you?” said Julian 
with his touch of sarcasm. 

“Sometimes. I don’t always tell them,” said Audrey. 
“But it’s good to grope towards the truth.” 

“How’s the family?” asked Julian. 

The Nye family was improving financially, though per¬ 
haps deteriorating morally, as far as Julia and Celia were 
concerned. Those two little wretches had abandoned their 
pigtails and were getting more cheeky than ever. They 
regarded Audrey as a hopelessly old-fashioned and reac¬ 
tionary person. They demanded the rights of youth against 
the tyranny of old age, especially in the matter of reading 
in bed. 

“Such books, too! I actually caught Julia reading Elinor 
Glyn!” 

“Good Heavens!” said Julian. 

Mr. Nye was teaching Latin to the elder girls in a con¬ 
vent school at Clapham for very good pay, but the Rev¬ 
erend Mother had warned him that she would have to dis¬ 
continue his services if he wrote mystical verse in the girls’ 
exercise books. Some of the parents objected and sus¬ 
pected amorous ambitions. 

“Is he still as cheerful as ever?” asked Julian. 

“More. Gay as a skylark, though down at heel. He 
finds poverty adorable, and sees the love of God in the 
knuckle end of a bone of mutton. Faith sustains him 
even when he reads the Daily Mail” 

“Amazing!” said Julian. “I wish to Heaven I could 
discover his secret. There must be something more in it 
than we imagine.” 

Audrey made a profound remark. 

, “I think there’s love in it somewhere, and passionate self- 
sacrifice for love’s sake.” 

“Human love?” asked Julian. 

Audrey dropped her eyes before his gaze and said, ‘As 
part of the universal scheme of things.” 

Then she called for her “cheque” from the A.B.C. wait¬ 
ress and said, “One and eightpence, which is twopence more 
than I ought to spend!” 


360 Heirs Apparent 

Then she sped off to her office on the nearest motor bus. 

“Passionate self-sacrifice for love’s sake.” 

Julian pondered over those words, and wondered if they 
fitted the lock to the mystery of life. There might be sweet¬ 
ness as well as bitterness in sacrifice—for love’s sake. 
Those fellows in the Great War—some of them, anyhow— 
had found some queer gladness in suffering lice and mud 
and shell fire for the sake of England, or some ideal in¬ 
explicable to themselves. Even his mother, so light-hearted, 
so utterly irreligious in the ordinary sense of the word, so 
fond of the pretty things of life,—how she had hated the 
memories of Brixton days!—seemed to get some magic 
strength out of sacrifice now that her husband lay stricken 
and desperately in need of her. Anyhow she put up a tre¬ 
mendous bluff. 

Not once after that stroke of his did she repine at the 
downfall of the family fortunes, or utter one lament over 
the coming loss of all she had loved so much—her gardens, 
her glass-houses, her household gods. 

The sight of Mr. Perryam brought home by Julian with 
one side of his face and body all stiff and dead, seemed 
to make all other things of no account. Julian and Janet 
watched her with their father, and marvelled. All the fret¬ 
fulness of married life in the later years seemed to be 
washed out by that calamity. They were like lovers again. 
Mr. Perryam’s eyes followed his wife with a smiling ten¬ 
derness wherever she moved about the room, if she were 
within his range of vision, lying motionless, unable to lift 
himself. He was restless and unhappy if she went away 
from him for long. And Mrs. Perryam would hardly allow 
any one but herself to wait on him, and was jealous even 
of Janet if she gave him his medicine. She had a new 
gaiety, not artificial or assumed to deceive her children, but 
natural and real. 

“Bang goes our Position!” she said, when the bills first 
went up outside the gate, notifying the public of “This 
Handsome Mansion for Sale.” 

“Poor old mater!” said Julian, full of commiseration. 

But she wouldn’t have his pity. 


Heirs Apparent 361 

“As long as Daddy gets better, I don’t care tuppence,” 
she said. “Besides, it was all a fraud. All our fine friends! 
How many have rallied round us in this time of trouble? 
Anyhow it sifts the sheep from the goats, as Grandpa 
would say!” 

On the whole her friends were more loyal than she ex¬ 
pected, and that helped her to bear misfortunes with a 
smiling philosophy—with wonderful courage. A few ladies 
cut her in the High Street, disgusted by her husband’s asso¬ 
ciation with the man who was now a convict. Others 
“cooled off,” as she called it, and forgot to invite Janet to 
their garden parties. But not many. Quite a number of 
the elderly people who had seemed so tired to Julian at the 
garden party, called round to enquire after Mr. Perryam’s 
health and left fruit and flowers in token of sympathy. 

Among these was the old Countess of Longhurst, who 
drove up one day in her carriage and pair. Julian hap¬ 
pened to be at home—it was the week before the sale and 
his help was needed—and the old lady gave him two gristly 
fingers and said, “Poverty won’t do you any harm, young 
man, if you’ve any grit in you. I only wish Johnny would 
have to earn his living by the sweat of his brow, instead 
of playing the fool in the Foreign Office—a pretty mess 
they’ve made of'things!—and drinking cocktails at the 
Carlton.” 

To Mrs. Perryam she was exceedingly gracious, and 
really kind. 

“I’m sorry that old Buckland man has made things awk¬ 
ward for you, my dear. Very hard on that good husband 
of yours. But there are worse misfortunes at sea, espe¬ 
cially in time of war with German submarines about. Any¬ 
how, I haven’t come to prattle. If you want any money, 
I can lend you a bit—in spite of those Income Tax Com¬ 
missioners who take the skin off my bones. Or if you 
want to get rid of Janet for a while—these modern girls 
are no good in a time of crisis—send her round to stay 
with me, and I’ll introduce her to lots of young fellows who 
will fall in love with her. It might be a blessing to marry 
her off, and I’m all for mating young.” 


362 Heirs Apparent 

Needless to say, Mrs. Perryam did not borrow money or 
lend Janet, but she was pleased with the offer of help. 

“That old dame is a credit to her class,” she said. “If 
there were more of ’em there wouldn’t be a chance for 
Bolshevism.” 

At another time she talked to Julian about her future 
plans. 

“As soon as Daddy gets better”—she took that for 
granted—“I shall have to look out for a job of work.” 

“Not you,” said Julian. “If I have to sit up all night 
and every night writing like an Oriental scribe, I won’t let 
you go to work, mother.” 

She pooh-poohed his protest. 

“Do you think I’m going to sit with my hands in my 
lap in a poky house in London while you get brain fever 
trying to keep a crowd of Old People? Not likely, laddy! 
If the worst comes to the worst, I’ll scrub floors and cook 
the dinners of the New Rich.” 

Julian’s grandfather approached him on the same sub¬ 
ject. 

“I’ve been reading the advertisements in London 
Opinion ” he said. “There seems to be a lot of oppor¬ 
tunity for earning money by home work. They don’t 
explain it exactly. Addressing envelopes, I daresay—and 
I write a good Civil Service hand. Or securing clients for 
a new brand of toothpaste. I wouldn’t mind working some 
respectable district. I can still get about pretty well.” 

Julian was touched by the old man’s courage and fidelity. 
He was less querulous since his son’s stroke, though inclined 
to regard it as a judgment of God for abandoning the Bap¬ 
tist denomination in time of youth. Mrs. Perryam’s cheer¬ 
ful resignation to misfortune had surprised him vastly and 
changed his opinion about her essential frivolity. 

“Your mother is a better woman than I thought she 
was,” he said once. “I may say that I regard her as a 
brave creature. Light-headed, but good at heart.” 

Even old Mary raked out her savings, amounting to 
seventy pounds, and insisted on handing them over to 
Mrs. Perryam. 


Heirs Apparent 363 

“I won't never need it for a marriage trousseau," she said, 
sulkily, to hide her bashfulness. “It's yours, anyhow, every 
penny of it, and if you won't take it I'll throw it into the 
dust-bin and be damned to it." 

It was Janet who was hardest hit, and least courageous. 
Mrs. Perryam was frightened about her. 

“I don’t like the way she weeps all day," she told Julian. 
“She’ll cry her eyes out if she goes on much longer." 

Julian was alarmed about her too. The idea of giving 
up the house at Gorse Hill and “sinking into squalor," as 
she called it, did not account for her utter abandonment to 
grief. She had a habit of going to her room between meal 
times and shutting herself up for hours together. When 
she reappeared it was with red eyes and a tragic look. 

Julian went to her room one evening—it was the night 
before the day they were leaving Gorse Hill and going into 
rooms in Kensington. The door was locked, but Janet 
opened it after his repeated knock. 

“What's the matter?" she asked, trying to hide her tear- 
stained face. 

“That's what I want to know, old girl," said Julian. 

He went in and shut the door and put his arms about her. 

“Look here, you can’t go on like this. You must pull 
yourself together. It isn’t playing the game by the mater 
and pater." 

“The game’s finished as far as I’m concerned," said Janet, 
and she wept with violence, so that he was really fright¬ 
ened. 

“It won’t be so bad," he said. “After all, we shan’t be 
so frightfully poor. There’s a bit saved out of the wreck¬ 
age. West Kensington is not next door to Hades." 

“It’s not that!" said Janet. “You all seem to think I’m 
only worrying about the money side of things." 

“What is it, then?" asked Julian. 

He would not go without an answer. When the answer 
came his face flushed. 

“You seem to forget that affair with Cyril. What’s the 
good of anything—now that I’m spoilt for ever? It’s 
rotted up my whole life. I wish I were dead!" 


364 Heirs Apparent 

“Curse Cyril!” said Julian passionately. 

He took hold of his sister’s arm, in a hard grip, as though 
by that pressure he might force her to be sensible. 

“That episode belongs to the past. It’s buried as far as 
I’m concerned. I decline to discuss it. I decline even to 
remember it. Let’s forget it.” 

“It’s easy for you,” said Janet. “You’re a man.” 

“It hasn’t been easy,” said Julian. “I’ve had a pretty 
rotten time.” 

Something in the break in his voice seemed to awaken 
Janet to a sense of her own selfishness. She leaned her 
head against his shoulder and said, “I know! You were 
hard hit, old boy. We’re both in the same boat!” 

“That’s exactly it,” said Julian. “We’re both in the same 
boat, and the sea’s a bit rough ahead. If we don’t pull 
together we’re going to be shipwrecked.” 

Janet smiled faintly at his nautical metaphor, but was 
not much consoled. 

“What’s the good of pretending?” she asked. “I wanted 
to have a good time in life. I’m not a saint like mother, 
resigned to spending the rest of her life in a sick bedroom 
between spells of household drudgery.” 

Julian stared at her gloomily. 

“I thought you said you weren’t worrying about the 
financial side of things?” 

“It’s all mixed up together,” said Janet miserably. “It’s 
the disillusion of things that hurts so frightfully.” 

“Meaning what?” 

“Meaning life,” she said. “Love, and the joy of things.” 

“Oh, Lord!” said Julian. 

“When I came home from that convent school I was out 
for joy.” 

“Oh, Lord!” said Julian again. 

Janet seemed to be annoyed by that repeated exclama¬ 
tion. 

“Why not? I was made for it. Why was I born pretty 
if it wasn’t to be loved? Why was I brought up to like 
jolly things, nice frocks, dancing, good-looking boys, all the 


Heirs Apparent 365 

fun to be had, and then denied everything, and have it all 
snatched from me? It isn’t fair. It’s unfair. Life’s noth¬ 
ing but trickery. I’ve been tricked all the way round!” 

Julian had once cried out against the unfairness of things. 
He too had said, “It isn’t fair!”—not long ago. He could 
understand this sister of his. She was going through the 
same agony of disappointment with the fraud of young 
illusions, childish dreams of life, and rage against the un¬ 
friendliness of things. 

Janet spoke bitterly again. 

“I fell in love with Cyril and he played about with me and 
then bunked off with that cat Evelyn. Was that fair? 
How am I going to pick myself up after that?” 

“There are other men—more decent!” said Julian. 

“How am I going to know?” she said. “What proof 
shall I have that another man won’t play the same rotten 
game ?” 

“They’re not all Cyrils, thank God!” said Julian. 

“They’ve all got the Cyril streak,” said Janet. “Except 
you, old boy!” 

Julian laughed at that, and then was serious again. 

“Perhaps even I!” he said gloomily. 

“Besides,” said Janet, “the fun has gone out. It’s not 
the same now. Poor old Daddy is lying at death’s door. 
I expect I shall have to be a shorthand clerk or something. 
All the gay times I looked forward to were just a silly 
dream, and I’m waking up to the fact that life’s a miserable, 
melancholy fraud. Far better not to be born, old boy!” 

Julian was sitting in a chair before his sister’s dressing- 
table and he took one of her silver-backed hair brushes and 
polished it on his knee in an absent-minded way. There 
was not a thing that Janet said which he had not said to 
himself, with equal bitterness. Even as far as that “better 
not be bom!” But he had got beyond that mood. Some¬ 
thing had changed in him. He had got beyond his weak¬ 
ness with Evelyn, his rage at life’s unfairness, his morbid 
pessimism. Perhaps it was merely the health of his body 
restoring the balance of mind. Or perhaps it was Audrey’s 


366 Heirs Apparent 

sense of humour that had helped him, or Henry Caffyn’s 
kindness. Anyhow he was not hoisting the white flag any 
more. 

There seemed to be some purpose in life of which he was 
a part. Ambition, or service, or sacrifice,—he didn’t quite 
know, but anyhow he was going to play the game, wherever 
it led. How could he get that idea into Janet’s head? 

“Look here,” he said, “I understand all that. I’ve been 
through it. But I’m out on the other side, old girl. I’m 
seeing daylight ahead. You’re wrong about the fraud of 
life, I think. It’s we that were fraudulent.” 

“We?” Janet was rather astonished by that point of 
view. 

“Why, yes,” said Julian. “We thought ourselves so jolly 
superior to the rest of humanity. We were so stuck up 
with ourselves. We didn’t expect the ordinary knocks that 
come to most people. We were Superior People, highly 
educated, very refined, utterly sure of ourselves, contemp¬ 
tuous of the Old People, and their fears about us, and their 
cautions. We were the Younger Generation, out for a 
good time, with lots of rights and no duties, and all for 
liberty and adventure. Sheltered from vulgarity and pas¬ 
sion, and able to take risks which scared our preposterous 
parents! ... In fact we were utter frauds, and rather 
caddish. Pretty selfish. Conceited kids! . . . Well, we’ve 
had our heads knocked together. We’ve been taken down 
a peg or two. . . . That’s all right. It’ll do us a bit of 
good. Anyhow, I’m damned if I’m going to whine!” 

He got up from Janet’s chair and faced her with a 
friendly smile. a £,\ 

“For Heaven’s sake, don’t whine, old-girl. That’s feeble. 
I’m rather a believer in facing up to knocks. If we can’t 
do that there’s no good in us. We’re just traitors to our 
own crowd. Young rotters. . . . And somehow I believe 
it’s up to the younger crowd to do a big job of work in the 
world. We can’t do that if we show the white feather at 
the first bump in the road. ... Of course I’m talking a 
lot of rot and all that, but you see what I mean ? Playing the 
game, with a bit of tradition behind it!” 


Heirs Apparent 367 

Janet was looking at him queerly, with a faint smile 
about her lips, and flushed cheeks. 

“Where did you learn all that?” she asked, with a touch 
of her old sarcasm. 

“Worked it out for myself,” said Julian, with a laugh 
that was rather shy. “Anything in it?” 

“It sounds fine!” said Janet, with a look of mockery. 

But it seemed to do her good, all the same. Next day, 
when they moved from Gorse Hill and left so much beauty 
behind—the gardens were in their glory—it was Janet who 
sat next to her stricken father and held his hand as he 
lay back on cushions in a hired car and groaned because 
of this tragic leave-taking of this house which he had built 
in the days of success. 

“All gone,” he said. “Finished!” 

Tears trembled on his eyelids and rolled down the 
stricken side of his face. 

“Not finished yet, Dad,” said Janet. “We’re only begin¬ 
ning !” 

She was beginning to play the game. 


XLII 


I T was an evening in June of this year 1923, when no 
more may be written of young lives whose further his¬ 
tory is not yet chronicled in the mystery of the years to come. 
Saturday, June the 23rd, to be precise, and a day of hot 
sunshine after months of grey skies, cold winds, and rain 
that turned to sleet on London pavements. 

The windows of the Perryams’ house in West Kensington 
were wide open and sheltered from the glare of the sun by 
light curtains stirred by a little breeze. The Perryams were 
in a street of tall stucco-fronted houses which had been 
freshly painted here and there by people who had a lucky 
margin beyond the Income Ta?c and the cost of life’s neces¬ 
sities—perhaps one in fourths Julian reckoned on his way 
to the Underground. His mother’s house was not one of 
them, and the stucco was cracking badly. But he had hopes 
that they might afford a bit of paint if his novel caught on. 

It was to celebrate the birthday of his first novel—“Heirs 
Apparent” he called it, with the younger crowd as its theme 
■—that he had arranged a little party that evening after sup¬ 
per. He couldn’t afford a supper party to such a bunch 
of friends with hearty appetites out of his weekly salary 
on Verity and advance royalties—fifty pounds!—on a novel 
that had not yet had its first review. There would be 
lemonade and sandwiches, and half a bottle of whiskey for 
the men, and chocolate eclairs for the girls. Audrey h$.d 
not lost her love for those,sticky delights which she used 
to consume so heartily in Fuller’s of the Cornmarket. 
Janet also had a sweet tooth. 

Anyhow, what did it matter? They hadn’t come to eat 
and drink. They came to celebrate the publication of a 
novel in which quite frankly, and with full permission, he 
had put all their portraits—Clatworthy—a Peer of the 
Realm, now that his father had died!—Stokes Prichard, 

368 


Heirs Apparent 369 

learned in the Law and even better educated in the Art of 
Life, Mervyn, Burnaby, Frank Nye—just off to Canada 
with his shy wife—and several other odd types, including 
Vivian Harshe, who had once been a victim of dope and 
now by some miracle of faith was a respectable City Clerk, 
doing well in a merchant's office and no longer afraid of 
the bottomless pit. He was rather “gone” on Janet and 
hadn’t a dog’s chance because Stokes Prichard had all the 
running now. 

When Julian came home for the evening party, Janet and 
Prichard were on the balcony among the marguerites in 
flower pots which were Mrs. Perryam’s substitute for the 
glory of the gardens at Gorse Hill. They waved hands to 
him, and Prichard shouted a “Cheerio!” 

Soon there would be no need, thought Julian, for Janet 
to serve in a hat shop in Sloane Street. Prichard would 
have a first-class salary after another year in his uncle’s 
office. They had arranged to wait till then before getting 
married, though Prichard was impatient and groused out¬ 
rageously at this postponement of Paradise. Janet was not 
impatient. She seemed perfectly happy to be engaged, to 
have Prichard dancing attendance on her, to go to all the 
theatres with him. They made a pretty couple in the dress 
circle as Julian sometimes looked down on them from the 
gallery, where he went for economy’s sake with Audrey 
Nye. People turned to look at that boy with the crinkly 
hair—so pleased with himself!—and that girl like Colum¬ 
bine before the end of Carnival. There was no fretfulness 
in her eyes now, no shadow of trouble. She had wiped 
out the Cyril episode. . . . Well, that was one burden less 
to Julian, one fear less. 

Some of the others were assembled in the drawing room 
upstairs when Julian arrived late for his own party because 
of an article which had to be written in a hurry. Clat- 
worthy was there, with Mervyn and Burnaby. They had 
the gramophone going, and Mrs. Perryam was playing a 
game of “Demon” with old Grandfather, who hated being 
beaten by a woman for whose intelligence at cards he had 
but faint respect, though he acknowledged her artfulness. 


370 Heirs Apparent 

Mr. Perryam was standing in front of the fireplace, talking 
to Vivian Harshe, not showing much sign of his long illness 
except when he moved about the room, leaning on his stick 
and dragging his left leg rather painfully. 

Julian’s arrival was gretted by a cheer from the younger 
crowd. 

“Author! Author!” shouted Clatworthy, as though at 
the first night of a new play. 

“Sorry to be so infernally late!” said Julian, blushing 
deeply because of that novel of which he was immensely 
proud between spasms of humility and destructive self- 
criticism. 

Stokes Prichard came through the French window with 
Janet. 

“Look out for libel actions, old boy,” he said to Julian. 
“I can bring twenty men to swear that they recognise a 
most offensive caricature of my blameless character thinly 
disguised under the name of Sturton Potts.” 

There was a howl of laughter from Clatworthy and the 
others. 

“There’s only one idiot who could quote such an endless 
stream of poetical bilge!” said Burnaby. 

“Sturton Potts!” said Prichard, pretending to be huffed, 
perhaps a little annoyed in real earnest. “Potts! . . . Now 
if you had called me Pervical, or Pollard, or Pitt, or Parker. 
But Potts! It’s an outrage.” 

“As for me,” said Clatworthy, “I’m undone. How can 
I enter the House of Lords with grace and dignity when 
the very policemen at the gate will expect me to make a 
monkey face? How can I become Ambassador in Paris 
when the hall porter at the Foreign Office reads a novel 
revealing my utter ignorance of the whereabouts of Czecho¬ 
slovakia? It has blighted my diplomatic career at the 
outset.” 

“Nobody’s going to read the rot,” said Julian. “And 
anyhow I grossly flattered the whole crowd of you, as you 
must admit. I have even suggested that Stokes Prichard 
has something resembling a brain under his golden ring¬ 
lets.” 


Heirs Apparent 371 

“Putting on one side for a moment my own claims for 
moral and intellectual damages/’ said Stokes Prichard, 
“what I object to in this preposterous work of fiction is 
the assumption that the younger crowd is not vastly supe¬ 
rior to its immediate predecessors.” 

“Hear, hear!” said Janet. “Julian has lowered our pres¬ 
tige in the eyes of the world. He has made a ridiculous 
defence of Early Victorianism. He has bolstered up the 
tyrannical claims of the Old People upon the liberties of 
youth.” 

Yes, she had forgotten the Cyril episode. 

“On the contrary,” said Julian, “I’ve tried to point out 
the obvious truth that we’re no better and no worse than 
all the younger generations that have ever been born since 
the Stone Age. I’ve declined on our behalf the responsi¬ 
bility which the Old People want to thrust on us, the task 
of cleaning up the mess they’ve made. We haven’t the 
experience, and it’s still their job.” 

Mr. Perry am was listening from his place by the mantel¬ 
piece, with a smile about his white lips. 

“I agree with Julian. As one of the Old People, I think 
we have asked too much of Youth. We expect the boys 
who won the War—and their younger brothers—to make 
a new heaven and a new earth out of the frightful heritage 
we’ve bequeathed to them. That’s unfair. All the same 
I believe they will—in another twenty years or so when they 
take command.” 

“Ah!” said Clatworthy. “When I’m Secretary of State 
for Foreign Affairs that poor old mug-wump Curzon will 
be thrust into the shadows of eternal oblivion. I’ll show 
the world the picture of dignified statesmanship!” 

Viscount Clatworthy made a face so astoundingly like 
Lord Curzon in one of his more sublime moments that the 
whole company was dissolved in laughter with the excep¬ 
tion of Julian’s grandfather, who solemnly put a King of 
Spades on the Queen of the same suit, and said to Mrs. 
Perryam, “My game, I think!” with the light of triumph 
in his old eyes. 

It was into the laughter caused by Clatworthy’s “face” 


372 


Heirs Apparent 

that Audrey Nye came in with her brother and her 
brother's shy-eyed wife. 

“Greeting, merry gentlemen!” said Audrey. “Let noth¬ 
ing you dismay.” 

She was in her shabby office frock, having had no time 
to change, but Clatworthy’s eyes paid her his usual homage, 
as he kissed her hand with the gallantry of Sir Walter 
Raleigh and the absurdity of Leslie Henson. 

“When do we start that piano-organ?” he asked, in ref¬ 
erence to some ancient jest. 

Audrey said “Good luck to the book!” to Julian, and 
for a moment their eyes met and then avoided too close 
an understanding. 

Frank Nye had grown a beard. He thought it would 
keep his face warm at forty below zero in Calgary. It 
would also save the expense of a safety razor. His wife 
sat next to Mrs. Perryam, holding her hand, and her eyes 
followed her husband about with a watchful smile like a 
young mother with a small boy who was always up to mis¬ 
chief, and adorable. She was looking forward to Canadian 
life. 

“Aren’t you afraid of the loneliness?” asked Janet. 

“Not with Frank,” she answered and then laughed and 
said, “He makes a house full!” 

They seemed to be happy with each other, by some mer¬ 
ciful fluke of luck, against all chances. 

The sandwiches and eclairs were produced, with the 
lemonade and whiskey. Stokes Prichard sang one of his 
songs, and then another, with a chorus. It was the begin¬ 
ning of a musical evening. 

Clatworthy and Julian talked under the cover of this 
noise. 

“I’ve just come back from Florence,” said Clatworthy. 
“Had a marvellous time.” 

“Good!” answered Julian. 

Clatworthy looked at him searchingly. 

“I met a ghost. A lady ghost. She asked to be remem¬ 
bered to you from the tomb of ancient history. In fact 
she sent you her very dear love.” 


Heirs Apparent 373 

“Good heavens!” said Julian. “Whom do I know in 
Florence?” 

Then he guessed, and flushed painfully. 

“Yes,” said Clatworthy, watching him. “Evelyn Iflield. 
As pretty as ever, and as merry as ever. But not quite so 
dangerous. More settled.” 

“That’s all right,” said Julian. “I don’t want to know. 
I’ve forgotten her.” 

Clatworthy was silent for a moment. 

“There are one or two things you ought to hear,” he said. 
“I promised to tell you.” 

“No,” said Julian. “Thanks very much. All that’s 
wiped out.” 

Clatworthy nodded, and took a sip of whiskey. 

“I know. Sorry to reopen closed books. It’s a mistake, 
mostly. But in this case it’s due to the lady and might 
make you feel better about things. She’s still Mrs. Iflield. 
The Major is living with her in Florence.” 

“What!” 

Julian spoke the word sharply. It rather spoilt one of 
Prichard’s high notes. 

“Yes. Funny thing. Rather good on the whole. That 
night she went away—you remember?—the fellow Buck- 
land missed meeting her, owing to a motor smash or some¬ 
thing. He was driving his own car. Drunk possibly! He 
crossed over the next day and followed her to Paris. But 
she was mad angry. Who wouldn’t be? Rather a let 
down! . . . Well, I don’t know details, of course. Any¬ 
how she had a first-class row with him and sent him to 
the right about. Pretty lucky for her! Then came that 
charge against old man Buckland—and his trial, and all 
that. Master Cyril was a convict’s son, poor devil! I 
don’t blame that up against him. Well, to cut it all short, 
Mrs. Iflield lived alone in Florence, and came to her senses 
a bit. Rather an escape, eh? In the nick of time. Then 
her mother-in-law died. It seemed to make a difference. 
Mothers-in-law do, I’m told, by George Robey. So now 
there she is with the Major again, very bobbish and per¬ 
fectly pleased. . . . And she sent you her dearest love.” 


374 Heirs Apparent 

'‘Much obliged, 1 ” said Julian in a hard voice. 

“Thought you’d like to know,” said Clatworthy. “Here’s 
luck to the book, old boy!” 

Julian liked to know, in spite of that “Much obliged” so 
hard and scornful. He was glad about that escape. He 
remembered as a kind of nightmare that evening she had 
gone away, his wanderings in the streets, his attempts to 
get in touch with her—or with Major Iffield. Then he had 
crept back to his rooms and prayed—actually prayed!— 
for a miracle, or something. Well, the miracle had hap¬ 
pened. That motor smash! . . . He was glad for her sake. 
For his own sake it did not matter very much. He had 
worked out a different scheme of life. 

He got on with that scheme a little when Clatworthy 
joined Stokes Prichard at the piano and added to the noise 
of another chorus. 

It was hot in the room. Audrey seemed to find it warm 
too. 

“Let’s take a breath on the balcony,” he suggested. 

Out on the balcony among the flower pots with the mar¬ 
guerites they stood hand in hand, looking down into the 
drab street where the lamps shone in a purple dusk. 

“How long have we got to wait?” he asked. “I’m get¬ 
ting impatient.” 

Audrey stroked his hand. 

“It’s worth waiting, isn’t it? Two years, three years, five 
years!” 

“Of course we can’t afford it yet,” said Julian. “Now 
your governor’s out of a job again!” 

“And you with your people to keep,” said Audrey. 

They were silent for a while, standing there with clasped 
hands. 

Julian spoke again, hopefully. 

“Janet will be getting married soon. That will ease 
things a bit. She’s rather expensive—in spite of that hat 
shop in Sloane Street. Then the mater is beginning to earn 
something. That typewriting!” 

“All the same,” said Audrey, “our little home is rather 
remote. This appalling poverty!” 


375 


Heirs Apparent 

She laughed and put his hand to her lips. 

“Never mind, Julian! As long as we keep the flag flying. 
You and I are rather important people, and we’re doing 
rather well for our age! Shining examples of virtue and 
sacrifice. Who says Youth isn’t facing up to life?” 

There was a gust of laughter in the room inside, and the 
excitement of some new arrival. Julian and Audrey went 
in from the balcony. 

Henry Caffyn had just arrived, in the middle of a chorus 
which suddenly broke away into laughter as he entered. 

He stood there smiling on the company—the elderly Don 
Quixote, with his pointed beard and upturned moustache 
and shrewd grey eyes. 

“A gathering of the younger crowd!” he said. “Singing 
ribald songs while the world rocks to ruin. Careless of 
Germany in dissolution, France arranging the end of Eu¬ 
rope, Russia waiting for the world revolution, and England 
pretending that nothing has happened—with a million out- 
of-works. What do you care? You’re not worrying!” 

“Not in the very least!” said Clatworthy. “Let the dance 
proceed!” 

“Won’t you have a whiskey, sir?” asked Julian. 

“I certainly will,” said Henry Caffyn. “I’ve a toast to 
offer.” 

He raised his glass, and his bright eyes looked from one 
face to another—to Clatworthy, Prichard, Mervyn, Bur¬ 
naby, Frank Nye, Audrey, Janet, and Julian. 

“Here’s to the Heirs Apparent,” he said, with a friendly 
tilt of his glass to Julian. “May you soon come into your 
kingdom. . . . Youth’s all right!” 


THE END 




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